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Indybay Feature

50th Anniversary of Selma Bloody Sunday Commemorative Bridge Walk and Rally

Date:
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Time:
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Bay Area Stop Mass Incarceration Network
Location Details:
Gather South (San Francisco Side) Parking Lot Golden Gate Bridge
Walk across the span in solidarity of the marchers gathered in Selma, Alabama

In Solidarity with the people marching in Selma. Alabama this Weekend

Rally and Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
12 noon, Saturday March 7th
Meet in the Parking lot on the South (San Francisco) Side of the Bridge
Bring Signs, Banners and your voice

USA, 1965—Black people in Selma, Alabama, viciously attacked by cops and the Klan for seeking the right to vote, beaten with baseball bats and billy clubs, tear gas, and whips; ... people murdered by brutalizing police, by racist vigilantes; ... “whites only” Jim Crow segregation still prevails across the South, and in the North—Black people crammed into crumbling ghettos; forced to attend overcrowded, underfunded inner city schools; arrested, beaten, and murdered by police; kept in the lowest-paying, most dangerous jobs, if they find work at all...

USA, 2015—a full half-century later—a New Jim Crow of criminalization and mass incarceration of Black and men still in full effect; more Black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850; soaring unemployment for Black people in cities across the entire country; public schools more segregated now—60 years since the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the hateful “separate but equal doctrine”—than they were in the late 1960s; And increasingly, Black people denied the right to vote, supposedly the most “sacred” right of U.S. citizenship, at a rate seven times higher than that for white people.

On top of that, there’s the increasing number of Black men and youths murdered by police in every city of this country—choked to death on a sidewalk in New York; shot and killed walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri, in a park in Cleveland, on a train in Oakland; racist vigilantes murdering Black youth in cold blood, being let free by courts at every level, up to and including the Federal government. The system is once again forcefully reminding us of the Dred Scott Decision that Black people have “no rights which the white man was bound to respect”.

But, also in August 2015, the defiant youth of Ferguson stood up. They sparked a powerful movement to stop the murder of people at the hands of the police. Tens of thousands of people, of different ethnicities and all over the country, blocked highways and bridges, marched through shopping malls, did "die-ins" everywhere, walked out from school, and left work. These actions shook this country to its core.

Now We Are At a Crossroads…Will we allow the system to suppress this movement and continue business as usual, or will re-take the offensive and bring even more massive waves of struggle to STOP the murder of Black, Brown and all people by the police?

On April 14, we need to take our movement to STOP wanton police murder to a whole new level. NO SCHOOL! NO WORK! NO BUSINESS AS USUAL!

On this day, thousands of students walking out of school, taking over buildings and going on strike at colleges and high schools nationwide. People gathering and marching in cities all across the U.S. The normal routine of this society, which includes wanton police murder of Black and Brown people, must be brought to a Halt!


* The murder of Black and Brown people by the police MUST STOP.

* Justice for all the victims of brutal, murdering police.

* Indict, convict and send killer cops to jail—the whole damn system is guilty as hell.

* Stop the repression targeting the protests—Drop all the charges against all those arrested.
Added to the calendar on Wed, Mar 4, 2015 5:43PM

Comments (Hide Comments)
by I was 15
While all of the above description of capitalist America is true, there have been some changes, within this writer's memory, due to the civil rights and labor struggles of the past 50 years, a lifetime of struggle. For those under age 60 (!) who probably do not remember the 3 Selma to Montgomery marches, the support coming from the North including the San Francisco Bay Area for these marches and the poor people of Alabama, regardless of color (my 99% white suburban high school sent clothes with the teachers from our school who attended one of these marches), read the history at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches
One of the fatal victims of the Klan at one of these marches was Viola Liuzzo (1925-1965), a white worker who brought support from labor to the Alabama civil rights movement. See
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Viola_Liuzzo.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo

Some improvements worth noting:
Life expectancy for blacks increased from age 64 in 1970 to age 75 in 2010. Infant mortality decreased from 44 per 1,000 births in 1960 to 11 per 1,000 births in 2010. As to general observations, it was unthinkable in the 1960s to see blacks on TV or in any advertising. Integration on the job was rare. Blacks and whites riding the same bus together was rare. Black elected officials at any level were rare. Blacks living in the same neighborhoods as whites was rare.

Additionally, 50 years ago we won Medicare for everyone over age 65, a form of socialized medicine, because labor was stronger, a milestone in history that should also be remembered.

These struggles all soon ended as the war against the Vietnamese people escalated under Democrat Pres. Johnson.

Today, it is all now common and integration on the job is everywhere. The white population is now a minority in most urban areas, and many states, including California, where the largest group is Latino, at 38% and the white European descendant population is 35% and rapidly declining. Nationwide, white European descendants are 65% of the population with a median age of 42 and rising, soon, by 2025, an insignificant minority. The problem is, the capitalist profit motive remains, the cause of poverty and the destruction of the planet. To get rid of that, we need a labor movement of workers of all colors, capable of carrying out a general strike nationwide.
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