Update: Rally at 9:30 A.M. August 1, 2020 at the jail.
Multiple demonstrators have been arrested according to Rockford Youth Abolitionists
Jail support outside of Winnebago County Jail, 650 West State Street, Rockford, Illinois July 31, 2020 at 8 pm. Please show up! Bring pizza, blankets, food and water!
National Day of Resistance-Milwaukee Light Brigade
Join LIT and MTEA in solidarity for this National Day of Resistance as we demand safe, healthy, and equitable schools and communities!
Wisconsinites demand:
• No in-person schooling until scientific and public-health data supports it
• Police-free schools
• All schools must be supported to function as community schools with adequate numbers of counselors and nurses
• Safe conditions including lower class sizes, PPE, cleaning, testing, and other key protocols
• Equitable access to online learning
• Support for our communities and families, including a moratorium on evictions/foreclosures, direct cash assistance to those unable to work, and other critical social needs
• Moratorium on new charter or voucher programs
• Massive infusion of federal money to support the reopening funded by taxing the billionaires and Wall Street
NOTE: FOR YOUR SAFETY, PLEASE DRIVE BY, TAKE PICTURES, AND/OR WATCH THE LIVESTREAM. DO NOT SHOW UP IN PERSON.
Vigil For Black Trans Women & Femmes
Hosted by Rockford Youth Abolitionists
The LGBTQIA community is organizing an event to publicly address the killings of those within our community.
Bring a candle and wear your mask
One of the goals of this event is to establish relationships with artists, organizers, or anyone who would like to get involved in creating a permanent mural in Rockford dedicated to the loss of life, beauty, and liberation that’s constantly being taken too soon.
We look to address the different ways the LGBTQIA community is being attacked and how we can move forward in combatting the injustice.
Rockford Youth Abolitionists and our homies are going to be observing Black August this coming month. Black August is a month to deepen our commitments as revolutionaries. Black August as a tradition emerges out of black struggle within the prison. During Black August, revolutionaries observe a fast from Sunrise to Sunset to strengthen discipline. This includes refraining from drinking water and other beverages. It is encouraged that revolutionaries take other types of sacrifices during the Month. A sundown meal is traditionally shared between comrades. The fast should be a reminder of conditions faced by black people in the past and the conditions that we continue to face.
We will be hosting community building events throughout the month in order to strengthen our movement here in Rockford. Some of these events are still TBA on the locations. If you would like to help with any of these events, send us an email. We encourage everyone to take part if they can in the Black August through fasting, training and studying with your comrades, friends and families.
We will include some links about Black August in the comments. We will be doing weekly posts to share information about black revolutionary history in the month of August.
The Coalition to March on the DNC will host a rally and march on the Democratic National Convention, occurring the week of August 17th – 20th, 2020 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The timing of the march on the Fiserv Forum will coincide with Joe Biden’s acceptance speech. Biden is expected to speak on Thursday, August 20th, with the convention opening that evening at 8 pm.
We are organizing a car caravan to travel to Milwaukee that day to be there for the protest and march. The caravan will depart from the new office of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression at 6353 S. Cottage Grove at 1 pm. We are planning for 2 hours for the caravan to reach Milwaukee, and more time to reach the rally location as we assume the police and federal security agents will make traffic very slow in Milwaukee as well.
NOTE: Because this is a national security event, the coalition CAN NOT promise that cars will be allowed to caravan along with the marchers.
From the Coalition: We will march behind the slogan “WE CAN’T BREATHE” to continue the righteous protest against police killings of Black people. We demand real police accountability and an end to police crimes and racist policies that have been enabled by both the Democratic and Republican leaders. The Coalition both sees the inadequacies of the Democrats and recognizes the need to beat Donald Trump. The rally will feature the family members of three people killed by Milwaukee police — the families of Alvin Cole, Isaiah Tucker and Jonathon Tubby.
Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression will also speak at the rally. Explaining the demand for community control, Chapman said, “When we demand community control of police, we are demanding defund and demilitarize, as well. If you think that those people who created the policing in the country are going to defund the police you need to think again. We need to be in charge of defunding the police.”
The Coalition to March on the DNC is a broad, national coalition of left and progressive forces, working with dozens of local Milwaukee groups and activists. We are rallying behind demands including but not limited to:
– Community Control of the Police / Stop Police Terror
– End US Wars and Interventions / Money for Human Needs, Not War
– Legalization for All / No More Deportations
– Tax the Rich
– Medicare for All
– Climate Action Now
– Fight to Expand Union and Worker Rights
– We Demand Peace, Justice, and Equality!
https://www.facebook.com/events/305756940105748
If you are interested in joining the caravan, or supporting the protest from home, complete this form:
For Immediate Release
7/29/20
Contact: Cat Brooks 510-631-4353, cat@justiceteams.org
People of Oakland Move Closer to Refunding the Community as City Council Creates Official Task Force to DefundOPD by 50% in 2021
Oakland, CA: The people of Oakland moved one step closer to realizing the goal of refunding resources to the community. After weeks of sustained protest and direct action, City Council unanimously approved a resolution last night to create an official task force to determine how to cut the Oakland Police Department’s budget by 50% next year.
The 19-person “Reimagining Public Safety Task Force” will have four advisory boards and a five-month timeline to develop draft recommendations. It will meet once or twice per month to make final recommendations to the City Council to defund OPD by 50% by March 31, 2021.
The transition team was an idea of the Defund the Police coalition, lifted up by CM Nikki Bas and later joined by CM Loren Taylor after intense community pressure. Oakland residents have overwhelmingly demanded that affected community members and survivors of police violence lead the new task force.
“While there is still much work to be done, this is a win for the People of Oakland. We forced the so-called Equity Caucus to commit to defunding OPD by 50% and investing that money in areas that truly keep us safe like housing, mental health, healthcare, and youth programs.” Cat Brooks, Anti Police-Terror Project
“This transition team only exists because of pressure from the People. Tireless years of organizing made this happen — and we will not relent until we actually cut OPD funding by 50%.” – liz suk, Political Director, Oakland Rising
In recent weeks, thousands of Oakland residents have joined what has become an international call to invest in services that truly keep people safe by divesting from police — building on the Anti Police-Terror Project’s five-year campaign to #DefundOPD and the Black Organizing Project’s 10-year campaign to dismantle the OUSD police department.
The Defund the Police Coalition, a broad coalition of Oakland-based community groups, has succeeded in mobilizing the community to defy the curfews, kicking school police out of Oakland schools and colleges, holding packed town halls, marching in the streets by the thousands, and engaging in peaceful civil disobedience at the homes of the school board directors, councilmembers, and the mayor.
Nearly two-thousand people from Oakland participated in a survey outlining who should serve on the commission- and made clear that survivors of police violence and community based experts should be centralized on the transition team. The community said resoundingly that current or former representatives from law enforcement and their families should not be involved in the task force. Thousands of community members have voiced support for reinvesting the money cut from OPD into housing, mental health support, healthcare, youth programs, jobs, and other social services that are proven to strengthen public safety.
“The People are clear: we want to divest from policing and invest in the Black New Deal. We’ll settle for nothing less — and there will be repercussions for any councilmember who stands in our way come November.” – James Burch, Policy Director, Anti Police-Terror Project
The Defund the Police Coalition includes Anti Police-Terror Project, Oakland Rising, Ella Baker Center, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, ACCE, Community Ready Corps, Bay Rising, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, Asians for Black Lives, Black Organizing Project, and many other Oakland community organizations.
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Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 