Resistance Bubbles and Boils Around the Country
March 23, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
There is resistance bubbling and boiling across this country. Daily outrages continue with police killings of unarmed Black youth and others; racial profiling and brutality by cops. But here, there, in unexpected places… from those who catch the most hell every day to students at elite universities… people are saying: “We ain’t taking this shit!” In just the past 20 days…
Los Angeles: As soon as word got out of the LAPD murder of a homeless man known as “Africa” on March 3, people took to the streets — 200 people, including many homeless, marched through downtown LA. They went right up to the entrance of the LAPD headquarters and faced off against a line of cops. The Police Commission was inside “discussing” the killing, but people weren’t having another “behind closed doors” cover-up. Dozens went right inside and challenged the Police Chief and the President of the Police Commission. Four days later more than 100 people converged at LAPD Headquarters then took to the streets again to express outrage at the killing of Africa.
In Madison, Wisconsin, March 6, protest broke out immediately after the police murdered 19-year-old Tony Robinson. For days people stayed in the streets. High school students – thousands – walked out. Saturday March 7, students at the high school Tony went to wore all black at the basketball game. On Sunday, churches held vigils and speak-outs. On Monday, March 9, 2,000-3,000 students from four high schools, as well as middle schools, walked out and took over all lanes of a main street leading to the State Capitol. Students from the University of Wisconsin joined them, and together they occupied all three floors of the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda. Two days later a thousand students again took to the streets demanding justice for Tony.
Thousands of students pack the State Capitol rotunda to demand justice for Tony Robinson, Madison, WI, March 9. Photo: AP
The very day that thousands of high school students were marching in Wisconsin on March 9, police in DeKalb County, George murdered another Black man, 27-year-old Anthony (Tony) Hill. Most of Tony’s neighbors are Latino, but dozens stepped across language and cultural barriers to join with the Atlanta Revolution Club in a protest the next day chanting, “Policías Asesinos, ¡No Mas!” and “Police Murder, No More!” Middle and high school youth on skateboards took handfuls of #ShutdownA14 stickers. The next day 200 people marched through downtown Decatur to protest the police murder of Anthony Hill.
East Oakland: Blow the Whistle!
On Blow the Whistle on Brutal Murdering Cops day, people learned to blow the whistle when they see the police
In the midst of all these police murders – and GROWING RESISTANCE -- the Stop Mass Incarceration Network put out a call for March 14 to be a day to: “Blow The Whistle On Brutal, Murdering Cops! Mobilize For A Day Of Blowing The Whistle On Brutal, Murdering Cops On March 14.” In response, actions were held in cities around the country including New York, the San Francisco/Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and Cleveland. Hundreds of whistles and materials about Shutdown April 14.
Kenwood Academy high school students challenge students at the University of Virginia to join them walking out of school on April 14 against police brutality. Justice for Martese!
March 18, University of Virginia. The day after Martese Johnson, a Black student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville was grabbed by police outside a bar, tackled, thrown to the ground and had his face slammed to the ground and bloodied—up to a thousand students, including many white students, rallied on campus. Students chanted: “If we don’t get it, shut it down.” On March 20, 750 miles away, in Chicago, students at Kenwood Academy (where Martese Johnson graduated from) called on University of Virginia students—to join them in taking the struggle to another level, to walk out on April 14.
On March 19, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey and District Attorney R. Seth Williams appeared at a town hall meeting to tell the public why – once again – NO CHARGES were going to be filed against a cop who had killed Brandon Brown, a young Black man last December. But in this case, something different happened. As described in the New York Times, “instead of a conversation about the man’s death, the meeting descended into lawlessness. Residents angrily shouted at the commissioner and pointed fingers in his face. Metal folding chairs were hurled. Protesters tussled with police officers. There were 10 arrests.” People chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and called the murderers out as pigs. (As we note elsewhere in this issue, while the Times may find these actions “lawless,” they are definitely just— and especially when the authorities find murder after murder of Black and Latino youth by police “lawful”!)
3/21: Dozens in Cleveland protest at spot where police killed Brandon Jones. Photo: special to revcom.us
On March 21 dozens of people gathered Saturday night at the spot where 18-year-old Brandon Jones was killed by a Cleveland police officer on March 19 to demand justice. People made links to other police killings going on – the epidemic of police killings, carrying photographs of 12-year-old Tamir Rice killed by the Cleveland police for playing with a toy gun on November 22 and Tanisha Anderson, a mentally ill woman who died after police forced her to the ground November 13.
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All this… and MORE is needed to build the movement to STOP police murder and brutality. All this needs to go forward and go to a whole other level on:
April 14—Stop Business As Usual! We Will Not Go Back!
No School! No Work! Say No More to the System Giving a Green Light to Killer Cops!
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