It's Martin Luther King Weekend in the Bay Area, and actions are taking place all over to #ReclaimMLK the truth of Martin Luther King Jr. as a man who advocated direct action and civil disobedience, who championed economic justic and believed that White liberals who cautioned against "premature" resistance to injustice were often African American's worst enemies.
This is the second year of #96Hours of Direct Action, broadly organized by the Anti Police-Terror Project. Many of both last year's and this year's actions center around extrajudicial execution by police - twelve hundred and four people last year, many of them in Oakland, San Francisco and surrounding towns. This year symbolic coffins with the names of those killed have been prominent, both in a memorial and march on Friday, January 15th, and an early morning visit and eviction notice to the home of Oakland's Mayor Libby Schaaf on Saturday, January 16th.
On Saturday evening, more than a hundred people gathered inside the Oakland Airport's Terminal One to "Say Their Names!", reading off the names of sixty-one people killed over the years by police in the Bay Area. It was a powerful demonstration, even if you will never hear of it from the MSM.
Cat Brooks, an Anti Police-Terror Project organizer, led the chants as people arrived from all over the country to an Oakland they would otherwise not hear about.
Interestingly, police and security kept a very low profile, interfering not at all with the event. There were no arrests - or even any tense moments, at least none that were reported.
Here are some of the names echoed through the airport terminal...
There are two terminals at the Oakland airport, and the group eventually marched over to the 2nd one, again "Saying Their Name!" as travelers deplaned.
More events are planned for Sunday and Monday, culminating in a large march from Oscar Grant Plaza to Emeryville (where Yvette Henderson was gunned down by police after an alleged shoplifting incident) beginning at 11:00 AM.