ILWU Rally and Shut Down All Bay Area Ports Demanding "Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail Killer Cops!"

On October 23rd, the ILWU Local 10 longshore workers closed all bay area ports (Richmond, Benicia, Redwood City, Oakland and San Francisco) and rallied in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza to protest the murder of Oscar Grant with the demand "Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail Killer Cops!" ILWU union port workers joined the rally which brought together many organizations, including labor unions, high school and college students, the faith-based community and the general public in a call for justice.

The rally was initiated by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 after Cephus "Uncle Bobby" Johnson of the Oscar Grant Family spoke to union members about the similarity between the murder of his nephew and a mural on the union hall depicting the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike. On "Bloody Thursday," July 5th, 1934, a striking seaman and a strike sympathizer, Nicolas Bordoise and Howard Sperry, were killed by a police officer who fired a shotgun into a crowd.

Johanes Mehserle, the ex-BART cop who shot Oscar Grant in the back on January 1, 2009 while Grant was being held face down by multiple officers, faces sentencing in Los Angeles on November 5th.