Feature Archives

The Anti Police-Terror Project again joined with multiple organizations to lift up the radical legacy of Martin Luther King all weekend long, culminating in the 6th Annual Rally and March on Monday, January 20. The Oakland MLK march demands were: Housing as a Human Right, Close the Camps, No School Closures, End Police Repression, Climate Justice, No More War. Cities that held Martin Luther King Jr weekend events around the Bay Area included San Francisco, San José, Santa Rosa, El Cerrito, and Hayward.

On January 4, thousands of people rallied and marched in Northern California, proclaiming "US Out Of Iraq" and "No War With Iran." Various groups, including ANSWER Coalition and Code Pink, called for a rally and march in San Francisco before the U.S. assassinated Iranian general Qassem Suleimani near the Baghdad airport on January 3. That extrajudicial killing swelled the turnout in San Francisco while anti-war activists quickly announced similar actions at other Northern California locations then and throughout the month. A Global Day of Protest occurred on Saturday, January 25.

One of the largest demonstrations ever in the United States was the Women's March in Washington D.C. the day after Trump was inaugurated. Solidarity marches were also held across the country. On January 18, for the fourth year in a row, women again marched to affirm that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights. The goal is to create a society in which women — including Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, disabled women, Muslim women, Jewish women, lesbian queer and trans women — are free and able to care for and nurture their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.

On November 18, unsheltered mothers claimed possession of a vacant investor-owned property in West Oakland. After receiving an eviction notice, Moms for Housing declared that they intended to remain in their new home and petitioned the courts to allow them to stay. Wedgewood refuses to negotiate with the moms on a sale backed by the Oakland Community Land Trust. At the latest court hearing on December 30, the judge did not issue a ruling, but might any day. Separately, Moms for Housing pushed back against a public relations ploy by Wedgewood — using affiliated Los Angeles nonprofit Shelter 37 to soften the company's image as it attempts to evict the moms.

On November 24, what was to be known as the Housing Justice Village began to take shape in Oscar Grant Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall. Housed and unhoused activists set up a number of tents on the grassy lawn to protest the city's never ending war against the homeless: demolitions, evictions, and tows of residential vehicles. In a political show of force, the city of Oakland directed a small army of police to mass arrest and jail 22 of the demonstrators on what would otherwise be a citable infraction. On December 2, arrestees held a press conference to address the city's attack and why they protested in the first place.

On the evening of December 17, the day before the US House of Congress was set to vote on Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump, the nation erupted into hundreds of demonstrations urging a vote to impeach. The San Francisco Bay area was no exception. Organized by Indivisible, MoveOn and others, there were demonstrations locally in over forty cities and towns. The following day, December 18, the House voted to impeach Trump on two counts related to his scheme to get Ukraine to announce investigations into his political rivals: Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

Years of work by organizations including In Defense of Animals, PETA, The Humane Society of the United States, Direct Action Everywhere, and others have culminated in legislative victories to ban fur. City-wide fur bans were approved in Berkeley in 2017 and San Francisco in 2018. This October, California passed the nation’s first statewide ban on the sale of animal fur. The statewide ban goes into effect January 1, 2023. On November 29, in the long-time tradition of Fur Free Friday protests the day after Thanksgiving, DxE activists demonstrated at a Walnut Creek fur store on Black Friday, less than a week after the store’s opening.