October 22, 2014—Demonstrations in 70+ Cities:

STOP Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

October 27, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Coast-to-coast, border to border, October 22 was a day of defiant struggle. In eighty cities, towns, and campuses, it was a day of diversity and creativity. A day of courage – going right up in the face of the forces of brutality, injustice, and repression. Youth locked down in the inner cities joined with clerics and academics. Parents of children murdered by police and families of prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder with activists for LGBT equality and supporters of the struggle for liberation of Palestine. Students from inner city high schools and universities walked out. All saying: STOP police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation.

Photo: Special to Revolution

Ferguson, Missouri.  A multinational crowd of hundreds marched on West Florissant, where protesters have been brutally attacked by police, and later that night to the Ferguson police station (site of regular nightly protests for 11 weeks).  A theme throughout the day: “Justice 4 Mike Brown / INDICT Now!” At night a giant “Wanted” poster was projected on a building across from the pig station: a picture of Darren Wilson with the words “Wanted for the murder of Mike Brown.” In nearby Clayton, people marched right into the St. Louis County police headquarters to protest the prosecutor’s blatant pro-police actions in the case. 

Left: Carl Dix from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and a co-initiator of October 22nd. Carl’s message to o22 said:
“[I]ntensified police murder is a concentration of an overall program of suppression that targets Black and Latino people.  This program includes warehousing more than 2 million people in prison, subjecting 80,000 people in prison to the torture of long term solitary confinement, stepped up detention and deportation of our immigrant sisters and brothers, and criminalizing young people.  All this amounts to a slow genocide that is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of tens of millions of Black and Latino people. These horrors are built into the very fabric of this system, and I’ll tell you, it’s going to take revolution nothing less to end them once and for all.  And everyone who sees these horrors for what they are needs to act now —to join in building powerful resistance to these horrors, resistance that can beat them back and ultimately can stop them. 

From Tallahassee, Florida to Portland, Oregon; from Boston, Mass. to Tucson, Arizona... In Lexington, Albuquerque, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Chattanooga,   “Streets and campuses across the country were alive with determined, militant protest on October 22nd. Thousands of people in dozens of cities and towns manifested with determination, anger, creativity and deep conviction: mass incarceration, the criminalization of generation after generation of Black and Latino youth must stop! Black Lives Matter! Latino Lives Matter! All Lives Matter!”   

Stop Mass Incarceration Network     

Photo: twitter/@local_maxima  

Seattle.  40 students from Garfield and other high schools marched to a police station after school to demand police stop targeting youth of color.  Later in the day some 100 people, including family members of people killed by police, immigrant rights supporters, and Jen Marlowe, co-author of the book I Am Troy Davis, marched and rallied in the pouring rain.  The mixed crowd of high school and college students, including Seattle Pacific University’s Black Student Union, middle class and homeless people, political activists and revolutionaries as well as first-time protesters confronted police and blocked busy intersections during rush hour. 

Photo: Special to Revolution    

New York City.  500-600 people rallied at Union Square, where one person after another with a relative murdered by police, including the sister of Eric Garner, spoke out.  Carl Dix declared his determination to march into Times Square, a symbol to the whole world, despite being denied a permit, and invited the crowd to join him.  The diverse crowd—whites, Latinos, Black people, gay and straight, students including from Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and the New School, marched through the heart of Manhattan, right past police barricades into Times Square, taking over the “red stairs” overlooking the plaza.   Left, Carl Dix on the stage, and Stolen Lives families at the rally at Union Square.

SF Bay Area.  After 150 students rallied on campus, 60 UC Berkeley students marched to Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland.  Students from at least nine high schools and eight other colleges took part, including 50 San Francisco high school students who walked out from school. Two dozen members of a local Unitarian Church, led by their pastor, also marched to join the action.    

Students and clergy joined attorney John Burris, Jeralyn Blueford, whose son was murdered by Oakland police, Tef Poe and Tory Russell from Ferguson, and longtime revolutionary Joey Johnson at the rally.  Then more than 650 (with more joining in) took off with whistles blowing and drums beating.  At the Federal Building, there was a huge die-in and  rousing speeches. Over 500 copies of Revolution newspaper were distributed along the march.    

Photo:fjj

Chicago.  High school youth,  joined some 500 others, including parents whose children were murdered by police, college students, prisoner rights groups, and clergy were honored on the stage for an electric march through downtown Chicago.  Last week high school students wondered if they’d get killed coming downtown to march, but on O22 they picked up whistles and posters and made the base of the famous Picasso sculpture their own.

Photo: Special to Revolution

Los Angeles.  Over 400 people marched through downtown, including family and friends of more than 12 people killed by police and students from campuses across the area. At times the sound of blowing whistles was deafening. The march went to the LA Criminal Court, the LA jail and LAPD headquarters where Reverend Frank Wulf, pastor of the United University Church on the campus of USC, along with a leader of the Revolution Club co-mc’d a powerful rally. Speakers included family members of people murdered by police, Today Show analyst and author Lisa Bloom, Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild, and Joe Veale from the LA chapter of the RCP.   

Chicago.  Contingent from Roosevelt University, where some 100 students walked out to join protesters at Daley Plaza.  Nationally, students played a key role in O22. Photo: Special to Revolution

Los Angeles: In front of LAPD headquarters, Los Angeles: Reverend Frank Wulf with family members of people who were killed by police. The rally truck is decorated with beautiful silkscreen posters of victims of police murder around the country, and Trayvon Martin, murdered by a wannabe cop in Sanford, Florida.

ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS. One of more than 70 cities around the country where protests took place on October 22, including Albuquerque, New Mexico; Kansas City, Missouri; Salt Lake City; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Greenville, South Carolina.

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