LEGAL ACTIVISTS OF COLOR
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Fwd: {Disarmed} [tupocc] Mass rally at San Francisco City Hall
Monday, Oct. 16, 11am: Enough Is Enough!
For Immediate Release
October 16, 2006
Contacts: Alicia Schwartz (510) 759-3843
Francisco Da Costa (415) 816-2307
THOUSANDS RALLY AT CITY HALL TO SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
COMMUNITIES OF COLOR IN SAN FRANCISCO ARE SYSTEMATICALLY DISAPPEARING, DEMAND SELF-DETERMINATION
Who: African American Community Police Relations Board, Environmental Justice Advocacy, People Organized to Win Employment Rights, Nation of Islam Bay Area, San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, Latino/Asian/Pacific Islander Coalition, ANSWER
Where: Front Steps of San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. San Francisco , California .
What: Mass demonstration of residents from San Francisco , Richmond , Oakland and beyond to protest the systematic destruction of communities of color and immigrant communities through police brutality, gang injunctions, and redevelopment.
When: Monday, October 16, 2006 - 12:00 p.m. Residents and participants will be available afterwards for comment.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA-Thousands of people will gather today in front of City Hall, demanding an end to the City and County of San Francisco's official policy of de-population and systematic destruction of the African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander and Immigrant communities of Bayview Hunters Point, Fillmore/ Western Addition, the Mission, and South of Market.
This unprecedented coalition of community based organizations, religious organizations, and concerned individuals have come together to effect change, specifically in Bayview Hunters Point, but more broadly in Black communities and other communities of color across San Francisco .
"We are coming together today because of the exploitation of our people and the attempted land grab that's happening out here in Bayview Hunters Point said Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper. "We are here to resist the City's attempt to re-people our community and use the police department as the occupying force to push us out of here, and we demand the referendum be fulfilled."
Last month, City Attorney Dennis Herrera released a legal opinion that effectively disenfranchised more than 33,000 people in San Francisco who signed the petition to re-call the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan. Ratcliff and other residents of Bayview Hunters Point say that while the Redevelopment Plan purports to provide affordable housing and community improvements, residents have little faith that these same improvements are geared towards the benefit of local residents, particularly those who are the most vulnerable to displacement, such as the elderly and residents of public housing.
"The people have spoken with 33,400 signatures. We demand that our referendum be put on the ballot," said Francisco Da Costa, Director of Environmental Justice Advocacy in Bayview Hunters Point.
Thousands of people from the San Francisco communities of the Mission District, Bayview Hunters Point, South of Market, the Tenderloin, Chinatown, the Western Addition, and other cities across the Bay Area such as Oakland and Richmond will rally outside of City Hall, demanding an end to the out-migration of communities of color, which residents say is the result of police brutality, development pressures, immigration raids, and the closure of schools and recreation centers in poor communities.
Ratcliff and other organizations in the community of Bayview Hunters Point have joined forces---including the Nation of Islam Bay Area, the African American Community Police Relations, People Organized to Win Employment Rights, and Environmental Justice Advocacy---in an unprecedented community coalition between faith based groups, community based organizations, and activists from Bayview Hunters Point, the Mission District, South of Market, and the Western Addition.
"All of us San Franciscans have entered into a dangerous time of civil unrest in our City," said Daniel Landry, chair of the Western Addition branch of the African American Community Police Relations Board. "This may be the final opportunity for people of color to stand together and sustain our existence while demanding our human rights to prevent total anarchy in this once great City known as Sir Francisco."
The group says that this is the beginning of a new movement that is connecting the issues of police brutality and youth incarceration with development issues. "Youth in Bayview Hunters Point are being ignored, and we're seen as being ignorant and dumb," said Cassandra James, District 10 representative on the San Francisco Youth Commission, "Youth participation at this event is showing City Hall and all the policy makers that youth are concerned, are involved, and are the opposite of how mainstream society is trying to portray us."
At the end of September, members of the coalition led a successful march and rally through the community where organizers say over 100 people attended on less than 3 days notice. The march coincided with the 40th anniversary of the uprisings against police brutality in Bayview Hunters Point when a young man named Matthew Johnson was shot in the back by police who suspected that he'd stolen a car. Organizers said that forty years later, not much has changed in this historically African American and working-class community, and that the community is outraged about broken promises that continue to be made by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the San Francisco Police Department, as well as other City agencies.
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