Reclaim MLK - BART Friday Shuts Down SF Stations, Disrupts Morning Commute, 1/16/15: photos/video

[Spoons were the big mystery element in the public callout for the action, with one local corporate media outlet ridiculously publishing a report that the spoons could be sharpened into shivs or being used to disable the electric third rail on BART tracks.]



BART, of course, has a long history of perpetrating injustices against African Americans in the Bay Area, from the massive displacement of Black businesses on 7th Street in Oakland when the transit system was first conceived and constructed as a mode of transportation for wealthier suburban commuters to BART’s recent Civil Rights Act violations regarding the now-completed Oakland Airport Connector.

Over the course of its history, BART police have killed several unarmed African American men including Oscar Grant. Such behavior continues to this day with the recent brutalization of passengers such as Nubia Bowe and others.

A public call went out to protest on the Montgomery Street BART station on Friday, January 16, at 7am sharp, and to bring a metal spoon. Three demands were issued:

1. Disband the BART Police

2. A ticket discount for low-income BART passengers

3. Drop all the charges and fines against the BlackFriday14

As protesters began to gather in the station, before the protest officially commenced, BART prevented eastbound trains from dropping off or picking up new passengers. Those trains would stop in the station but not open their doors. A woman in a wheelchair banged incessantly on the door, but the train operator would not let her off of the train. Westbound trains heading deeper into San Francisco continued to allow passengers on and off in the station. About 10 minutes past 7am, protesters began to bang their spoons on station support columns, the platform floor, and BART trains. BART quickly began to announce via their in-station electronic message signs that the station was closed. The noise created by the spoons made the station far too loud for any possible verbal police commands to be heard.

A westbound train stopped in the station and a single door opened or was forced open. Protesters began to flood the train and hold the door open but BART personal and police eventually forced protesters out of the way to allow the door to close and the train to move to the next station. One protester who reportedly banged a spoon on the train was arrested and carried from the station when he went limp.

A good number of protesters stayed and held the Montgomery station which remained closed for most of the morning commute. At one point about an hour after the protest began, BART police grabbed a woman with a cane from a BART train door in Montgomery station, tackling and arresting her. Word is that police held her for ten hours and disappeared her cane, "finding" and returning it several days later. The two arrests appeared somewhat random, since those arrested were reported to have done nothing different than any other protester.

Shortly after BART began displaying the "station closed" messages, with trains passing through Montgomery but not allowing protesters, or passengers, to board, many protesters headed up to street level and marched up Market Street to the Embarcadero station. Arriving in two groups, the first protesters to arrive were able to make it down to the platform level where they continued to bang their spoons. The second group, arriving later after having watched a dance performance by Get Up Street Theater on Montgomery Street, were not able to make it past BART police blocking stairwells, escalators, and fare gates in the Embarcadero station. Those below on the platform level could be heard banging their spoons, and they remained at Embarcadero, with BART choosing to keep the station closed for the duration of the protest, until after 9am.

The second group unable to reach the Embarcadero platform then marched back on Market Street past the Montgomery station, which never fully re-opened, to the Powell Street station, making it to the platform level. BART responded by sending trains through the station without stopping. At that point three of four downtown stations were closed simultaneously. Protesters remained in at Powell until around 9:30am and then dispersed of their own accord, and BART began operating according to its normal schedule again.

During the protest, BART had called for "mutual aid" with MUNI and scrambled to direct passengers and its own police force to travel between stations using MUNI trains. The only downtown station untouched by the protest was Civic Center.

The same morning as the BART action, there was also an unannounced pre-dawn lockdown the Federal building in Oakland.

The idea behind reclaiming MLK’s legacy is to rescue it from the sanitized version whereby King has been painted by liberals for decades as a make-nice or passive historical figure rather than the defiant radical fighting for justice that he actually was. MLK was very much controversial and often despised, not at all adored by the majority of whites in America, at the time of his assassination.

APTP actions were organized using a spokescouncil/affinity group model, allowing for a diversity of actions in a wide variety of locations. In all, hundreds of activists organized over two dozen actions which brought out a diverse group of thousands committed to racial and economic equality in the Bay Area and across the United States.



#BARTFriday: NO BUSINESS AS USUAL #BlackLivesMatter Reclaiming King's Legacy
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/01/12/18766790.php


Indybay Coverage of the Justice for Oscar Grant Movement
https://www.indybay.org/oscargrant


For more more info and coverage of APTP "Reclaiming Martin Luther King Jr's Legacy" actions, see: