On December 13th, the largest protest gathering in the Bay Area since the Occupy Port Shutdowns and General Strike took place. Three to five thousand people assembled at Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland, then marched to the Alameda County Courthouse by Lake Merritt.
"Noematic" created a haunting video of the event at the courthouse called "No Beauty With an Absence of Color." Featuring a song by a young African American woman and high school student from Oakland, Imani Diltz, you can listen as shots of the crowd are interspersed with images of protests from the late '60s and early 70s.
I said a lot of mothers cried this summer
I said a lot of brothers died this summer
Some boys got shot
Dark complexion, white cop
And some heart monitors stopped
Rest in peace, Grandma, I love ya
...
Not forty-eight hours later, Oakland woke up to the news that the Oakland Police Station was in the processed of being blockaded. You can read how the action unfolded in
my diary from that morning; here is a moving video, "Voices from #ShutdownOPD," created during the event, featuring a version of the protest song "Which Side Are You On" and powerful words from some of the event's organizers.
Which side are you on, friends, which side are you on?
Which side are you on, friends, which side are you on?
Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all.
And we will fight for freedom until justice is won.
...
Looking out from the Courthouse on December 13th.
One scene from early in the OPD Shutdown Monday morning, December 15th.