Street SpiritJ U S T I C E N E W S & H O M E L E S S B L U E S I N T H E B A Y A R E A

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by Rev. Brian K. Woodson

It is time to imagine a new dream. The50th anniversary of the March onWashington for Jobs and Freedom was

held on August 28, 2013. All over thenation, many small and not-so-smallevents were held to commemorate theanniversary, including a memorial marchin Washington, D.C., and a commemora-tive celebration in Oakland’s MosswoodPark (in which I played a small part).

The massive march held inWashington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, ismost remembered for the speech that Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered onthe steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Although I was only six years old atthe time, I can still remember watchingthat speech in the living room on our oneand only black-and-white television set. Iremember many anniversaries of that dayin later years, often celebrated in churchservices where a youngster would standand recite that speech word for word.

“I still have a dream...” they wouldbegin reciting. “It is a dream deeply rootedin the American dream. I have a dream thatone day this nation will rise up and live outthe true meaning of its creed: ‘We holdthese truths to be self-evident, that all menare created equal.’ I have a dream that one

day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons offormer slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together atthe table of brotherhood.”

That keynote speech and the martyredman that gave it has become the sealedenvelope of the entire march and move-ment for Civil Rights in America. Andnow, with the son of a father from Kenyaand a mother from Kansas in the White

House, the question can be asked: Has thedream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.spoke about come true?

Certainly, few people would bristle tosee or hear the son of a former enslavedperson marrying the daughter of a formerslaver. We are assured that in these daysof equal opportunity, each of us isassessed by the content of our characterand certainly not the color of our skin, or

the accent of our voice, for that matter. But the memory of that day 50 years ago

may misrepresent the movement uponwhich it came into being — and misunder-standing the social, political and moral real-ities of America in the mid-20th centurywill not only distort one’s view of it, it willmar our ability to remedy the present.

The Long March to a New Dream of Justice

At the 1963 March on Washington, more than 250,000 people demanded an end to discrimination and full employment for all.

See Long March to a New Dream page 6

Like the bold activists of thepast, let us use the power ofnonviolence to create a worldwithout the evil of war andthe desperation of poverty.

by Lydia Gans

On Earth Day, April 22, 2012, aspecial version of the Occupymovement began working atthe Gill Tract, a sprawling

piece of land belonging to the Universityof California at the corner of Marin andSan Pablo Avenues in Albany. Theycalled it Occupy the Farm.

Several hundred people broke into theGill Tract and proceeded to establish anurban farm. They set up a camp with aportable kitchen and composting toilets.They worked the soil and planted morethan two acres with carrots, broccoli,tomatoes and more.

Effie Rawlings explains how it allcame about. In 2011, she took a class thataroused her interest in urban farming,taught by Miguel Altieri, professor ofagroecology at UC Berkeley in the

Department of Environmental Science. Atrip with friends and fellow students to theOccidental Arts and Ecology Centerinspired them all.

“On our way home,” Rawlings recalls,“we were thinking about how amazing itwould be to have a thing like that closer toan urban area where more people couldaccess it. As we started having that con-

versation, we passed by the Gill Tract andwe said, ‘Hey, what about that place?’”

They knew about the history of the GillTract and its mandate to serve as publiceducation. Threatened by the University ofCalifornia’s attempts to turn it into com-mercial property, they decided to fight it bythe signature act of resistance of theOccupy movement — occupation.

The activists aimed to create a modelfor sustainable urban farming. UC offi-cials moved against them with avengeance. They put heavy locks on thegates so the campers had to pass suppliesover the fence. When UC officials turnedoff the water, the campers passed gallonsof water in heavy jugs over the fence,always under the eyes of the police.

The camp lasted for three weeks. Then,the University came rolling in with heavyequipment and evicted the campers.

Gabrielle Silverman was one of thecampers. She had participated in OccupyOakland but she was particularly movedby the camp experience at the farm.

“What was so excellent about Occupythe Farm was that it brought a land con-sciousness to the Occupy movement,” saysSilverman. “We had that connection withthe MST in Brazil — the landless peoplesmovement in Brazil. It was an expression ofa global consciousness that also acts verylocally and very concretely.”

Silverman went on to say, “We cametogether at Occupy the Farm and we madethe place grow, we made it bloom and webuilt real community — and, of course,

Volunteers Make an Urban Farm Flourish in Albany

Volunteer farmers at Gill Tract farm are producing bountiful crops ofhealthy, organic vegetables and giving them to people in the community.

Lydia Gansphoto

See Urban Farm Flourishes page 4

This is land that should befarmed, not paved over. It island that should be plantedwith crops to feed hungry peo-ple, not greedy corporations.

September 2013ST R E E T SP I R I T2

by Laura Magnani

About 30,000 prisoners went ona hunger strike on July 8,2013, to protest the dehuman-izing conditions of confine-

ment in California prisons, especially thelong-term isolation and sensory depriva-tion in security housing units.

According to research conducted bythe American Friends Service Committee,more than 14,500 prisoners are held insome kind of solitary confinement inCalifornia, though it goes by several dif-ferent names — security housing units,administrative segregation, protective cus-tody, psychiatric services units, andadjustment centers on death row.

The current hunger strike has primarilyfocused on people in the security housingunits (SHU), with an estimated 3600 pris-oners; and people in administrative segre-gation (Ad Seg), where another 7600 peo-ple are confined.

As of this writing at the end of August,dozens of prisoners were in their 55th dayof refusing solid food. We have heardreports of widespread dizziness, vomiting,vomiting blood and extreme dehydration.

In recent weeks, the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections andRehabilitation (CDCR) has provided vita-mins and electrolytes, in the form ofGatorade or Pedialyte, which has helpedwith hydration, but many have requiredintravenous hydration to keep fluids down.Organ failure and death are very real possi-bilities at this stage of starvation.

Why would so many people take suchdrastic measures? Conditions of confine-ment in these high-security, solitary cellsare intolerable and more than 500 peoplehave endured these conditions for over 10years. Nearly 100 have been in these tor-turous conditions for more than 20 years.

People are living in cells that measure 8feet by 11 feet (cells vary slightly frominstitution to institution). They are allowedno calls to family members except foremergencies. They have no contact visits.At Pelican Bay State Prison, they have notseen the sun since being sent to the SHU.Their exercise time is spent in another cage,alone, inside the prison. Activities, to theextent that there are any, are all done alone,inside their cells.

This year’s hunger strike follows twoearlier ones in 2011. The five coredemands of the hunger strikers havereceived widespread support:

1. INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Prisoners demand an end to CDCR’suse of “group punishments” — the loss ofprivileges for entire yards, or for all pris-oners of an ethnic group — for rule viola-tions by a single prisoner, or a few.2. ABOLISH THE DEBRIEFING POLICY, AND

MODIFY GANG STATUS CRITERIA

Racial profiling via gang affiliationlabels are imposed by CDCR staff, withoutjudicial review. Such a “gang status” labelwill punish a prisoner in solitary for years,from which he can escape only by “debrief-ing” — snitching on other alleged gangmembers — or by dying or being paroled.3. COMPLY WITH U.S. COMMISSION REC-

OMMENDATIONS ON AN END TO LONG-TERM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

This would require using isolation onlyas a last resort, and ensuring that prisonershave access to natural light and meaning-ful activities, and are free of physicaldeprivations that cause lasting harm.

4. ADEQUATE HEALTH CARE AND FOOD

Provide constitutional levels of healthcare, as required by the courts. Cease thepractice of denying adequate food, as aform of punishment. Make sure food isuncontaminated and unspoiled.

5. PROVIDE CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAMSAND PRIVILEGES FOR SHU INMATES

California SHUs are among the harsh-est punitive environments in the country.Strikers simply want their everyday livesto be put on par with other SHU unitsaround the country.

NEW POLICIES IMPLEMENTED INPILOT PROJECT

A year after the second hunger strike in2011, new policies were issued fromCDCR to address the gang validationprocess, create a step-down program togive people a way out of the SHU withoutbecoming informants for the Departmentof Corrections, and set up a case-by-casereview process for people in the SHU.These policies are being rolled out as a“pilot project” which they hope eventuallyto translate into new regulations.

CDCR claims it is a behavior-based pro-gram that separates gang validation fromreferral to SHU, and that for people who arein solitary, the new norm will be four years,rather than the existing six years.

Over the past ten months, about 400prisoners have had their case reviews —some in a SHU facility and others in AdSeg. Of those receiving hearings, morethan 60 percent have been authorized fortransfer to general population and about30 percent have been placed in one of thesteps in the step-down program.

Never could we have imagined, whenrecommending creation of a step-downprogram, that it would be a four yearprocess — especially when people havealready spent many years in isolation.

Neither did we imagine that “behavior”would be interpreted as having a particu-lar piece of art, a tattoo, or a book in one’scell. Indeed, people who exhibit violentbehavior receive fixed sentences, usuallyto Ad Seg, and are eventually released togeneral population. Indefinite sentencesare still permitted for gang affiliation,whether or not it involves action.

The real disappointment in the newpolicies, besides the duration of the pro-gram, and the absence of any limitationon length of stay, is the discretionary waythat policies can be applied.

The Department of Corrections says ithas ended indefinite SHU sentences, but itretains the authority to hold people back,step by step, for having the wrong atti-tude, failure to “cooperate,” talking to thewrong people, indeed for participating in

a hunger strike. Virtually anything can beconsidered “gang behavior,” especially ifmore than one person is involved.

What do the prisoners themselves sayabout what they are doing? SitawaNantambu Jimaa, one of the four strikerepresentatives at Pelican Bay, saidrecently, “As people who have sufferedunder such a brutal, diabolical system, werealize that it is our responsibility to helpchange the course of violent prison sys-tems that have made their way to ourcommunities... We called for an end tohostilities to eliminate giving prisonguards an excuse to kill prisoners. Werealize nothing productive can be done tochange the current state of our situation,

our prison environment, unless we end thehostilities between prisoners and end allracial and gang violence within theCDCR. We feel that prisoners are the vic-tims of a systematic process that manipu-lates them through racial and gang vio-lence in order to prevent greater unity.”

The only way the strike can end with-out any more participants dying is if theDepartment of Corrections begins to seethe prisoners as humans, not just as peo-ple who have committed crimes, usuallydecades earlier. Without this breakthroughthere will be deaths.

On August 14, 2013, Arturo Castellanos,another prisoner confined in Pelican Bay,

Life-and-Death Issues in the Prison Hunger Strike

Rev. Theon Johnson III of Glide Memorial Church speaks out on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento, telling prisonofficials and legislators to meet the striking prisoners’ five demands, including an end to long-term solitary confinement.

Sacramento, August 29, 2013 – The following joint statement was issued todayon behalf of the California Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning the currentprisoner hunger strike and state policies on prisoner isolation.

Today marks Day 52 of the California prisoner hunger strike. We, the CaliforniaConference of Catholic Bishops, once again extend our offer to Gov. Brownand Dr. Jeffrey Beard, Secretary of the Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation

(CDCR), to assist in the resolution of this urgent life-threatening situation. We offerto serve Gov. Brown and Dr. Beard on any outside oversight committee that may beconvened to investigate any alleged human rights violations in California’s prisons inorder to propose the necessary corrective measures.

As the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote in their pastoral letter, Responsibility,Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and CriminalJustice (dated November 15, 2000), “We oppose the increasing use of isolation units,especially in the absence of due process and the monitoring and professional assess-ment of the effects of such confinement on the mental health of inmates.” No oneaffected by crime is helped when a human being is subjected to this inhumane form ofpunishment. The California Catholic Bishops have voiced concerns and have been indialogue with the CDCR for 12 years on the very issues being surfaced now.

We stand opposed to any form of unjust, inhumane treatment. While it may be thatisolation mitigates gang activity, placing humans in isolation in a Secure HousingUnit (SHU) has no restorative or rehabilitative purpose. It is not a sustainable solutionto legitimate security concerns. Some of the men on this hunger strike have been inisolation for up to 35 years with very minimal human contact. International humanrights standards consider more than 15 days in isolation to be torture.

Our prayers and concern go out to the men involved in this hunger strike and theirfamilies. Our prayers and concern also go out to all who are affected by the criminal jus-tice system: prison leadership, staff, correctional officers and administrators; as well as tocrime victims and their families, who have endured the pain and suffering of criminalviolence. We offer our assistance to state officials to resolve this terrible situation.

California Bishops Statement on PrisonHunger Strike and Isolation Policies

“Some men on this hunger strike have been in isolation for up to 35 years with very minimal human contact.

International human rights standards consider more than 15 days in isolation to be torture.”

See California Prison Hunger Strike page 3

September 2013 ST R E E T SP I R I T 3

wrote: “I am one of the four principal vol-unteer representatives here at Pelican BayState Prison (PBSP) in the SecurityHousing Units (SHU). I have been here onindefinite SHU since I arrived in 1990.”Castellanos says that the CDCR, often withthe cooperation of the FBI, is “now playingthe old propaganda agenda by ... personal-ly attacking the 20 named volunteer prison-er representatives from the PBSP SHUShort Corridor, especially the four groups— White, Black and Latino from theNorthern and Southern parts of California— united in this common cause to radicallychange CDCR for prisoners, prisoners fam-ilies and the overall true safety of our out-side communities with our ‘Call to End allHostilities’ paper, our Five Core Demandsand 40 supplemental demands.”

“The same rationale, that the strike issimply a manifestation of gang control, wasused when the medical receiver’s office,providing medical care for the state prisonsystem, went to court in the fifth week ofthe strike to get an order allowing them tobegin force feeding prisoners. They madethe argument that some prisoners who hadsigned ‘do not resuscitate’ directives couldhave been coerced, therefore all such direc-tives should be ruled invalid. It perpetuatesthe infantilizing of prisoners and reinforcesthe CDCR narrative that people are only onhunger strike because gangs are forcingthem to be.”

As readers of Street Spirit are wellaware, hunger strikes are a revered non-violence tactic used by Gandhi, CesarChavez, homeless advocate Mitch Snyder,and many others to call attention toextreme hardships and injustices.

Experienced practitioners of nonvio-lence — such as Gandhi or Cesar Chavez— warned of the serious risks of potentiallong-term damage to the physical health

of hunger strikers. When the opponent ina nonviolent struggle refuses or fails toacknowledge the humanity of the hungerstrikers, all may be lost. It is sobering toremember that Cesar Chavez fasted to thepoint of permanently harming his ownhealth, and died prematurely.

Will the Department of Corrections seethe humanity of the prisoners and sitdown with them to find a solution? Orwill they add to the torture of long-termsolitary confinement the additional tortureof force feeding?

The demands of the strikers are notunreasonable. The Department says thetactics are unacceptable and can’t be“allowed.” What alternatives do these pris-oners have? The grievance process withinthe system, known as the 602 process, iscompletely broken. The 602 forms are fre-quently lost, often disregarded, and alwaysdecided on internally.

On August 30, a joint press release wasissued by Senator Lonnie Hancock, chair ofthe Senate Public Safety Committee, andAssemblymember Tom Ammiano, chair ofthe Assembly Public Safety Committee,stating: “The issues raised by the hungerstrike — concerns about the use and condi-tions of solitary confinement in California’sprisons — are real and can no longer beignored. The Courts have made clear thatthe hunger strikers have legitimate issues ofpolicy and practice that must be reviewed.The Legislature has a critical role in consid-ering and acting on their concerns. We can-not sit by and watch our state pour moneyinto a system that the U.S. Supreme Courthas declared does not provide constitution-ally acceptable conditions of confinementand that statistics show has failed toincrease public safety.”

“The strike is not over yet and it is stillat a very dangerous moment, given that… people have gone [so many] days with-out eating,” said Marie Levin, whose

brother is one of the four remaining strikerepresentatives locked in AdministrativeSegregation at Pelican Bay. “We hopethat the CDCR will not act to disrupt thispotentially positive development byspreading false information to strikers orcontinuing to retaliate against their peace-ful protest.”

The urgent plea of the American FriendsService Committee and the many partner-ing groups who have stood in solidaritywith the strikers is for CDCR to agree toput a cap on sentences in security housingunits. Our own time limit, which is backedby UN documents, would be 18 months.Beyond that, people must have access tooutdoor time, regular calls to family mem-bers, interaction with at least a small groupof other prisoners, meaningful activities,adequate food and health care.

In addition, there must be avenues forredressing grievances other than the 602process. Many of the conditions in theseunits came about arbitrarily, as forms ofgroup punishment over time. Many of themare still in place. Others were revised withprevious hunger strikes. It shouldn’t takedrastic measures like starvation to bringabout simple changes. Regular, respectfulcommunication is essential to achievingjustice in these systems.

As Street Spirit was going to press,there were two late-breaking develop-ments. One was the promise by legislatorsof a joint hearing on solitary confinementin the Fall, with a strong sense fromSenator Hancock and AssemblymemberAmmiano that there is a major problemthat needs attention. The real question iswhether state legislators will put laws inplace to prevent the abusive conditionsthat led to the hunger strike.

The other development was a promisedphone conversation immediately afterLabor Day between the Mediation Team,on which I serve, the four representativesof the four ethnic groups at Pelican Bay,and Department of Corrections officials.

Although the Mediation Team has

been meeting with the officials off and onthroughout the strike (and before), it hasbeen difficult to make progress becausethe Department of Corrections refuses to“negotiate.” The call was for “communi-cating, not negotiating.”

If the prisoners are satisfied with thesesteps and decide they can safely begin toeat again, there will still be a lot to do tobring the issues to light through the hear-ings and to make the needed changes.

Go to http://prisonerhungerstrikesoli-darity.workpress.com for the latest infor-mation. See also the www.afsc.org andwww.NRCAT.org for in-depth materials.

Laura Magnani is Healing JusticeProgram Director for the American FriendsService Committee, San Francisco.

Dear Governor Brown: We write as clergy and religious lead-

ers in California and throughout theUnited States who stand in support of thefive demands of the California stateprison inmates who have now resumedtheir peaceful hunger strike. These coredemands for reform are related to solitaryconfinement – a practice where prisonersare confined to a small, windowless cell,without sunlight, fresh air, meaningfulhuman contact or constructive activity formany years, even decades.

Our various faith traditions hold incommon a belief in the dignity and worthof each human person. Prolonged andindefinite solitary confinement violatesbasic religious values of justice, compas-sion, and healing.

The scale of prolonged solitary confine-ment in California is staggering, with wellover ten thousand adult prisoners currentlyheld in some form of solitary confinementin California prisons. California leads thenation in the percentage of its state prisoninmates who are subjected to this abusivetreatment at any given time. Another verydisturbing feature of solitary confinement inCalifornia is the high percentage of peopleof color subjected to it. Actual numbers arenot kept, but estimates suggest that 90% ofinmates in Security Housing Units are peo-ple of color.

We realize that a number of changeshave been made in policies related to soli-tary confinement since the last hunger

strikes. However, these changes do notplace any limits on the length of time aperson can be held in these conditions.

Extended solitary confinement is glob-ally recognized as torture. Cut off fromany normal human interaction, enduringsensory and physical deprivation, manyprisoners describe their experience in theSHU as the experience of being “buriedalive.” Juan Mendez, Special Rapporteur

for Torture for the United Nations, hastestified that indefinite and prolongedsolitary confinement in excess of 15 daysshould be subject to an absolute prohibi-tion. Article I of the UN ConventionAgainst Torture prohibits policies andpractices that “constitute cruel, inhumanor degrading punishment.”

While prison and public safety arecited as reasons for prolonged solitary

confinement, we believe that prison safe-ty, and public safety, can be maintainedconsistent with principles of humanity andhuman rights. Religious leaders through-out the United States have advocated foran end to the use of prolonged solitaryconfinement because it is a destructivepractice. In states, including Mississippiand Maine, where significant reductionshave been made in the use of solitary con-finement, there has been an increase ininstitutional safety.

We support the five core demandswhich include: (1) eliminate group pun-ishments for individual rules violations,(2) comply with the recommendations ofthe US Commission on Safety and Abusein Prisons (2006) regarding an end tolong-term solitary confinement, (3)expand and provide constructive pro-grams and privileges for indefinite SHUinmates, (4) abolish the debriefing policyand modify active/inactive gang status cri-teria, and (5) provide adequate food.

Those most directly impacted are thethousands of human beings in solitaryconfinement. The circumstances of theirdetention causes anguish for their familiesand loved ones. Yet, all of us are impact-ed, because the way in which we as asociety treat those in prison pervades ourculture and diminishes us all.

We are calling on you to honor the rea-sonable core demands of prisoners in SHUin order to bring this hunger strike to a swiftand humane end.

Religious Call for a Just and Humane End to the Hunger Strike in California Prisons

“Captive” Art by Todd Tarselli

“A Religious Call for a Just and HumaneEnd to the Hunger Strike in CaliforniaPrisons” has been signed by over 1000clergy and religious leaders.

Street SpiritStreet Spirit is published by AmericanFriends Service Committee. The ven-dor program is run by J.C. Orton.

Editor, Layout: Terry MessmanWeb designer: Ariel Messman-Rucker

Contributors: John Bottega, LydiaGans, Warren K. Leffler, LauraMagnani, Dan McMullan, MarkleyMorris, Todd Tarselli, DylanThiermann, Marion S. Trikosko, ArnoldWhite, Rev. Brian K. Woodson, GeorgeWynn

All works copyrighted by the authors.

The views expressed in Street Spirit arti-cles are those of the individual authors,not necessarily those of the AFSC.

Street Spirit welcomes submissions ofarticles, poems, photos and art.

Contact: Terry MessmanStreet Spirit, 65 Ninth Street,San Francisco, CA 94103E-mail: spirit@afsc.orgWeb: http://www.thestreetspirit.org

from page 2

California Prison Hunger Strike

“Extended solitary confine-ment is globally recognizedas torture.”

September 2013ST R E E T SP I R I T4

they came and crushed us.”The farmers returned three times for

weekends of planting and harvesting.They had produced bountiful crops ofhealthy, organic vegetables which theybrought to people in the community.

Now, for five months until November,the campers’ vision of an urban farm isbeing brought back to life. UC ProfessorMiguel Altieri has brought together peo-ple from various community groups,including Albany Farm Alliance, MerrittCollege, Albany Children’s Center,Occupy the Farm and others, along withsome of his own graduate students, in anagroecological research project.

In an article in the Daily Californian,Altieri wrote, “This project is a uniqueopportunity not only to rebuild trustamong the university and the communityin the aftermath of the land occupation,but also to break the linear mold of con-ventional research by creating bridgesbetween scientists and communitiesthrough the use of shared knowledge andvaluable experience in urban agriculture.”At the end of this period, the communitygardeners at the Gill Tract will share their

produce with the community.Ten teams of four people each have

their own plots where they decide what toplant and what methods to use. It is anopportunity to test different farming tech-niques and, at the end of the project, theywill measure the amount and quality ofthe crops they produce.

The aim is to develop a method that willproduce at least “five kilograms of ediblebiomass per square meter per year,” Altieriexplains. “Reaching such yields wouldmake a huge difference in solving foodsecurity problems in low-income neighbor-hoods of the East Bay if the lessons fromour project can be extended via urbanfarmer to urban farmer networks.”

David Grefrath, known as Farmer Dave,is part of the research group and has beenhelping supply the plants and all the neces-sary supplies to the teams. Grefath and oth-ers were part of Occupy Oakland.

“We were in contact with Miguel beforewe went out to the farm the first time,”Grefath says, adding that some participants“were students of Miguel’s, which is howthey learned about the tract originally.”

The team members have access to thetract for three hours a day, several days aweek, to work on their plots. Team mem-

bers have different reasons for their par-ticipation in the project.

Karen is a school gardener at AlbanyChildren’s Center preschool. “I’m herebecause we don’t have enough space togrow what we need for school lunch,” sheexplains. “I’m doing this as a volunteer toget more food into the school so the kidscan have a healthier lunch than what thegovernment provides.”

An older couple are growing vegeta-bles to share with members of theirseniors organization. A couple of farmerswho were in the process of dividing a flatof starts between them commented with agrin, “They wanted us to compete againsteach other, but nobody is going for that —like if somebody doesn’t have enoughpeas and they have some corn ...”

There will be an open house in themiddle of October and the project isexpected to end with the last harvest inthe middle of November. There is no indi-cation at this time of any plans to continuethe farming experiment.

The project has brought hope andinspiration to people interested in urbanfarming as a way to provide nutritious,organic food for poor people at little or nocost. It is a very modest event on a smallplot of land for only four months involv-ing only 40 participants. There were easi-

ly a hundred or more people who wereinterested in taking part.

There is much more that can and mustbe done. Research is needed to developmethods for urban farming, which is verydifferent from large-scale agriculture.

The Gill Tract is a big space. Thenorthern portion is already designated foragricultural research and only a part of itis being used for an experimental cornresearch project. The equally large south-ern portion of the Tract lies unkempt andunused except by a flock of turkeys.

The University of California’s effortsto bring commercial development to thesouthern portion is being vehementlyopposed. Whole Foods had an agreementwith UC officials to open a market there,but then pulled out. Now Sprouts Markethas contracted to open there. This wouldmean paving over a large part of the landfor the store and parking lot.

There will be protests. There will be anOccupy movement that resists this kind ofcommercial exploitation. This is land thatshould be tilled and fertilized and madeproductive, not paved over.

It is land that should be used to fulfill thepromise made by Altieri’s project to engagepeople in urban gardening. It is land thatshould be planted with crops to feed hungrypeople, not greedy corporations.

Short story by George Wynn

Hank walks down a narrow alleycarrying a suitcase and bedroll.It is still light out as he comesout onto Larkin Street and

passes a Vietnamese sandwich shop and aVietnamese restaurant, and then goes overto observe the stone lions welcomingfolks to Little Saigon.

He walks down Eddy Street and seesan opportunity and follows an elderlyAsian lady who leaves a tinge of the dooropen as she enters her building. He walksup to the roof. After he lays down hispack and bedroll, he takes long, deepbreaths to calm his shaking hands.

Borderline Parkinson’s, the doctor at thefree clinic by the Civic Auditorium said.Hank dropped off his horn at a South ofMarket pawnshop this afternoon. No usestruggling to play with trembling fingers.

He puts on his headphones and turnsthe walkman on to KCSM, the Bay Area’sjazz station. A smooth and sweet DukeEllington-Jimmy Blanton piano-bass duetelicits a lusty, “Oh yeah!” from smilingHank. He scans the roof: no clothesline.Not many people come up here. Maybe hecan get some solitude and some goodnights’ sleep.

Hank looks out over the roof, seeingthe Tenderloin below. People walkingaround, with beaten and hostile faces,arguing in the streets, free as pigeonsfighting for scraps.

Jazz expands space in his head. Hisbrain riffs with new possibilities. He canimagine himself as a man on edge with acue stick suddenly presented with a gift ofcreative angles from a bottled-up positionon the velvet green of a billiard table.

He remembers how he wound up onthis roof. He had been listening to somecats older than him blow in New Orleans’Louis Armstrong Park, the sounds mel-lowing him out, imagining railroad cars,first in slow motion, then speeding up.

The thought of “Gotta get away, gottatake a chance... even if it’s a slim one,”wouldn’t leave him. The next day, Hanksaid good-bye to New Orleans and board-ed an Amtrak train headed for the SanFrancisco Bay. It was his first venture

outside the South, other than his stint inthe service.

Hank had made a small living, verysmall, playing horn. Most of his gigs werelittle night clubs in New Orleans. Nowand then, he’d have a nice payday doingstudio work as a sideman in biggerensemble bands. Technically he was onlyfair, but he had a great feeling, and was agood accompanist.

Hank sleeps well his first night on theroof in the Tenderloin, then eats his mealsat St. Anthony’s and Glide, and strikes outlooking for work in pizza shops and fastfood places. He keeps his spirits up byhearing a jazz soundtrack in his head. Itgets him in motion and prevents brooding.

He sleeps well his second night on theroof, relaxing to a cool, pretty RoyEldridge trumpet solo, “Rocking Chair.”Later Charlie Mingus’ bass closes his eye-lids.

It rains the next two days, but he is pre-pared with a poncho that an attractiveCreole woman, the love of his life, whopassed on two years ago, gave him on his66th birthday. He hates the thought of ashelter and being walled in. Hank cansleep anywhere. He’s done special train-ing in snow mountain country in the ser-vice.

That night, Hank dreams about a whiteman pummeling him to a bloody pulp. Hewakes with a start, remembering when hewas an exhausted kid who lost his waterbottle on a scorching hot Little Rock dayand didn’t know any better and sat downin the white section of the bus. A bigwhite man kicked him in the privates.Man alive, what pain!

Bastard musta wore a size 13 at least! Even though he has no luck finding

work, he can’t wait each day to follow thesky up to the open air of the roof and lis-ten to jazz. One night he’s startled by theopening of the roof door and covers hiseyes from the blaze of flashlights.

“SFPD,” announces a big, bespectacledcop. “We got a phone call about a suspi-cious person on the roof.”

Another big cop moves toward him,the spitting image of the man in LittleRock who kicked him in his private parts.

“This ain’t my town,” says Hank under

his breath. “What are you doing up here?”

demands the cop.“I don’t know sir,” says Hank. “I was

trying to get some sleep and listen to jazz.”“You’re trespassing. This is private

property, plus you can’t sleep outside inthis city.” The bespectacled cop writes outa ticket and hands it to Hank, who stuffs itin his overcoat pocket. “We’ll escort youdownstairs.”

Once back down on the street, spittingimage says, “You’re free to go, but nexttime it’ll be the county jail.”

Now Hank walks back from the French

Quarter, where he plays trumpet for pock-et change on the street. Work is sparse inthis economy. The shaking in his handsthat started in San Francisco mysteriouslydisappears once he’s back in NewOrleans. He passes by Louis ArmstrongPark. The same cats are still blowing.

“Hey Hank,” yells the sax player, theace of the bunch. “Hear you spent a weekin San Francisco. I played at theBlackhawk on the corner of Turk andHyde Street in ‘63. It was great!”

Hank doesn’t say anything. He gripshis case, holding his horn extra tight andwalks off down Rampart Street.

THE JAZZMAN FOLLOWSTHE SKY UP TO THE ROOF

Urban Farm Flourishes in Albanyfrom page 1

“Saxman Uptown” Painting by Arnold White

September 2013 ST R E E T SP I R I T 5

by Dan McMullan

In 1984, I was in a serious motorcycleaccident that put me in the hospitalfor more than a year. The manyoperations and blood transfusions I

went through left me with hepatitis C.After everything else I went through, thatreally didn’t worry me much at the time.

I had never seen anyone sick with thedisease before my accident, and for sever-al years afterwards, I still never saw any-one who had come down with the illness.

Then about 10 years ago, the strangestthings started to happen. A friend wouldfeel ill, vomit up some blood, go to thehospital — and I would never see themagain. It got scary. More and more peopleI knew were dying.

Does everyone have this disease? Itseemed like it was everywhere! In the lastthree years, I lost a half-dozen friends,many that were very close to me. Theywere people from all walks of life: doc-tors, nurses, lawyers, politicians, businessowners, truck drivers.

Then my personal care attendant gotsick. We are very close. She has takencare of me for more than 15 years. Itseems to me that the disease really likes tokick in at middle age when your hor-mones go through changes.

Most people with hepatitis C experi-ence very few or no symptoms for manyyears after initially being infected. It oftentakes decades until liver damage causedby the virus shows up.

So many great people have been lost.Most never even knew they had the dis-ease. Among a group that lived at a com-mune up north where it was very commonto share a razor or even a toothbrush, thedisease was spread rapidly. Who knew?

At least now we know that hepatitis Cis spread primarily by transfusions, blood-to-blood contact, poorly sterilized medicalequipment and IV drug use.

At the time I found out about it, theywere just realizing the nation’s blood sup-ply was infecting hundreds of thousands.Public health officials still do not knowhow many people have hepatitis Cbecause so few are tested.

You can get a routine blood test thatcovers 100 different things from yourphysician and still the hepatitis C virus(HCV) is not one of them. But the diseaseis widespread. An estimated 150-200 mil-lion people in the world, and four millionAmericans are infected with hepatitis C.

At the time when the nurse said thedoctor wanted to speak to me about myblood results, the possibility of AIDS waswhat had my heart beating out of mychest. I was actually relieved when he saidit was hepatitis.

But now, 30 years later, it is a differentstory. This thing was a killer. Now it wascoming after the ones closest to me. Andwith two young sons to raise, I always hadit in the back of my mind that it wouldcome for me too, one day soon.

I felt an overwhelming urge to fightback, but where do you begin? I can’t havemy usual sleep-out in someone’s blood-stream or picket their liver. I needed to gettreatment for my friend and personal careattendant. The thing about hepatitis C is, ifyou have this disease, and you don’t haveany symptoms, it’s the very last thing youever want to think about.

In my work with homeless people, Ihave all kinds of flyers that I pick up toamass information. So I dug franticallythrough what I like to call the “BobSparks Memorial Library” — a hugestack of papers in disarray, just like BobSparks used to do it — and I found it:Oasis Clinic in Oakland, a clinic thatattends to the health care and social needsof people infected with hepatitis C.

Before we went down to check outOasis, my friend and I had an appoint-ment with Dr. Jacob Lalezari at QuestClinical Research in San Francisco. Questis doing trials with the latest therapies forhepatitis C and other blood-borne dis-eases, and although we just missed gettingmy friend into a trial, we both put our-selves on their list.

There actually was one opening left fora male, but there was no way I was goingto accept it while my best friend is sittingthere in tears because she is dying. I couldwait. And I did.

So it was at the regular Tuesday sup-port meeting at the Oasis Clinic where wefinally got the real story about this med-ical problem and got my friend into treat-ment. The treatment included interferonand some other medications that are nopicnic. The treatment lasted 28 weeks, butat the end it was entirely successful andher hepatitis C was no more.

The Oasis Clinic is run by Dr. DianaSylvestre. Oasis is a great program that notonly offers treatment, but has the best sup-port group and activists I have ever seen.

Their work is all the more impressive since,in my experience, not many general practi-tioners are aware of the rapid advances inthe treatment of this disease.

Then, one week after the Oasis treat-ment for my friend, I got a call from Dr.Lalezari at Quest in San Francisco.“Would I like to take part in Phase III ofthe Abbvie study?” This study has a 97percent cure rate and uses no interferon,so I jumped at the chance.

Within the first two weeks, I was com-pletely clear of the virus. (That’s a 30 mil-lion viral load to 0 or undetectable.) Afterthe 12-week treatment, I am still clear ofthe virus and feel great. Throughout thetreatment, I had no major side effects. Icouldn’t whine to anyone and even feltbad for all those that were cured by earli-er, more difficult treatments.

But it looks like they have this monsteron the ropes and there is tremendous rea-son for celebration.

I went in to talk to my therapist that Ihave been seeing to work on my memoryloss and PTSD from getting hit by a truckwhile in my wheelchair. I told her aboutwhat I had been going through, and after Iwas done speaking, she stood up and lift-ed up her pant leg. Right above her anklewere the letters HCV in a red circle and aline through it.

She had contracted the disease as a nursebefore she changed jobs and became a ther-apist! She found out only after being testedfor everything else under the sun. Got treat-ed, got cured, and now has the privilege of

hearing my troubles once a week! (One ofmy friends, after hearing the story, said theywould rather vomit blood and keel overthan have to hear my troubles!)

The thing now is to defeat the stigmaattached to this disease, get people testedand get people cured. It’s unacceptablethat I, you or anyone else should loseanother loved one to this sickness.

We are dedicated to educate and eradi-cate. So it was with great pleasure that Iattended the World Hepatitis AwarenessDay Event sponsored by Oasis Clinic andsupported by Berkeley Free Clinic andLifeLong Medical at Snow Park (LakeMerritt) in Oakland on July 28, 2013.

It was fun for the first time to not onlytalk about a cure, but to declare, “I justwas cured, and so was my friend here.”And him, and her, and those two — point-ing out people all over the park.

So get tested! Get treated! Live longer!We need you! Here are some numbers toget you started.

OASIS CLINICPhone: (510) 834-5442520 27th St., Oakland, CA 94612

QUEST CLINICAL RESEARCHPhone: (415) 353-08002300 Sutter St., Suite 202, San

Francisco, CA 94115

Daniel J. McMullan is the director of theDisabled People Outside Project, and a com-missioner on Berkeley’s Human Welfareand Community Action Commission.

Celebrating Advances in the Battle Against Hepatitis C

The Berkeley Free Clinic and LifeLong Medical Care helped celebrate World Hepatitis Awareness Day in Oakland’s Snow Park.

A concert in Snow Park celebrates Oasis Clinic’s work to eradicate hepatitis C.

This disease is a killer. It wascoming after the ones closestto me. But it looks like theyhave this monster on theropes and there is tremen-dous reason for celebration.

Dr. Diana Sylvestre, director of Oasis Clinic.

September 2013ST R E E T SP I R I T6

Fifty years ago, America was a tinder-box awaiting the spark. The Americanethos that had enslaved millions and cre-ated myths of race to support it had mor-phed into a Jim and Jane Crow reality.The U.S. Constitution declared an equali-ty of all citizens, while the laws and livedexperiences were completely different.White nationalism (the notion thatAmerica really exists for whites) in itsvarious forms was the lived reality fromNorthern Maine to Southern California.

Byron Williams, author and columnist,has just published a must-read book,1963: The Year of Hope and Hostility,where he argues that 1963 may have beenone of the most pivotal years in Americanhistory. I think he is right.

THE YEAR OF ASSASSINATIONSOn May 28, 1963, Medgar Evers, who

worked with the NAACP to end racial seg-regation and white violence against theblacks of Mississippi, had his house fire-bombed while he slept with his wife andfamily. Two weeks later, on June 12, 1963,Evers was murdered in his own driveway,shot to death by a member of the WhiteCitizens’ Council, Byron de la Beckwith.

It was in 1963 that Dr. King, impris-oned on April 12 for a nonviolent marchagainst racial segregation in Birmingham,Alabama, wrote the now famous “Letterfrom a Birmingham Jail.”

In 1963, Governor George Wallacestood in the door of the Foster Auditoriumof the University of Alabama to preventVivian Malone and James Hood, twoAfrican Americans, from enrolling.President Kennedy had to send in theNational Guard to insure that they would beenrolled. Gov. Wallace’s infamous wordswere: “Segregation now, segregationtomorrow and segregation forever.”

Those same words were repeated fromWallace’s inaugural speech in which hemore fully exposed his perspective: “In thename of the greatest people that have evertrod this earth, I draw the line in the dustand toss the gauntlet before the feet oftyranny, and I say segregation now, segre-gation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The “greatest people” Gov. Wallacewas referring to were the Southern Whitesrepresented by the likes of JeffersonDavis, the provisional president of theConfederate States of America.

Less than one month after the historicmarch on Washington, Addie Mae Collins,Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson andDenise McNair, four young girls gettingready for choir rehearsal, were killed whenthe 16th Street Baptist Church ofBirmingham, Alabama, was bombed onSept. 15, 1963.

This was a time when the efforts ofAfrican Americans to claim and acquirethe basic human rights afforded otherswere met with violence and disdain fromthe core culture of America. Yet, theMarch on Washington was not a marchfor African-American equality alone, oreven primarily. It was not a march so thata core culture person could freely associ-ate with and perhaps even marry anAfrican American.

It was a march that rose upon a millionprayers and practices of people whosought economic, social and political jus-tice. The mainstream media and evenPresident Kennedy did all they could tothwart the march. Even on the day of themarch, Kennedy had troops stationed,hospitals on standby and plans made toquell the violence many were sure wouldoccur should the march proceed.

This is in large part because the Marchon Washington was held to declare thatthere was something fundamentally wrong

with, and in, America. The march was notjust for African Americans and it did notjust feature African Americans. It was amarch that rose on the crest of a wave ofchange sweeping across America.

We have been taught to remember theRev. Martin Luther King’s speech and hisdream in a false frame. Dr. King’s lifegoal was not that his daughters be able tomarry interracially if they so chose, butthat the world they lived in would be amore just and equitable one. His speech,though eloquent and the concludingaddress, was not the only importantaddress heard by the 250,000 people onthe mall and the millions more at homewatching. Much of what was said on thatday is conveniently forgotten or deliber-ately not celebrated. ARCHITECTS OF THE MARCH: BAYARD

RUSTIN AND A. PHILIP RANDOLPHImportant addresses were also delivered

that day by the two key organizers of thehistoric march: A. Philip Randolph, whohad given birth to the idea of a mass marchon Washington, and Bayard Rustin, themajor architect of the march.

A. Philip Randolph was a leader in thecivil rights struggle, and a pioneering laborunion organizer who was president of theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters andvice-president of the AFL-CIO. He spokefirst at the March on Washington, callingfor economic justice and full employmentfor the millions living in poverty.

Randolph said, “We know that wehave no future in a society in which sixmillion black and white people are unem-ployed and millions more live in poverty.Nor is the goal of our civil rights revolu-tion merely the passage of civil rights leg-islation. Yes, we want all public accom-modations open to all citizens, but thoseaccommodations will mean little to thosewho cannot afford to use them. Yes, wewant a fair employment practice act, butwhat good will it do if profit-gearedautomation destroys the jobs of millionsof workers, black and white?”

Bayard Rustin was the chief organizerof the 1963 March on Washington, and akey strategist of the Southern ChristianLeadership Conference who had studiedGandhi’s nonviolent campaigns in India.At the march, he urgently called forimmediate action to end discrimination.

Rustin said, “We demand that segrega-tion be ended in every school district inthe year 1963! We demand that we haveeffective civil rights legislation — nocompromise, no filibuster — and thatinclude public accommodations, decenthousing, integrated education, FEPC and

the right to vote. What do you say? Wedemand the withholding of federal fundsfrom all programs in which discriminationexists. What do you say?” [FEPC was theFair Employment Practices Committeecreated by President Roosevelt’sExecutive Order 8802, which stated,“There shall be no discrimination in theemployment of workers in defense indus-tries or government because of race,creed, color, or national origin.”]

JOHN LEWIS AND SNCCThe youngest speaker that day was

John Lewis from the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee (SNCC). Severalmembers of SNCC, including Lewis,wrote his speech:

“We march today for jobs and free-dom, but we have nothing to be proud of,for hundreds and thousands of our broth-ers are not here, for they are receivingstarvation wages or no wages at all. Whilewe stand here, there are sharecroppers inthe Delta of Mississippi who are out in thefields working for less than three dollarsper day, 12 hours a day. While we standhere, there are students in jail on trumped-up charges. Our brother James Farmer,along with many others, is also in jail.

“We come here today with a greatsense of misgiving. It is true that we sup-port the administration’s Civil Rights Bill.We support it with great reservation, how-ever. Unless title three is put in this bill,there’s nothing to protect the young chil-dren and old women who must face policedogs and fire hoses in the South whilethey engage in peaceful demonstration.”

Many others spoke that day as well:James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Rabbi UriMiller and Rabbi Joachim Prinz, to name afew. We owe it to them and ourselves toremember what that day really was and thecontext in which it was born if we are tolearn from its lessons or continue its work.

Here in 2013, the American avatar,President Barack H. Obama, embodies themythological meaning of the March onWashington. President Obama is argued asthe embodiment of Dr. King’s dream, buthe is not. The movement upon which themoment of that march is elevated in historywas about much more than cosmeticchanges. Perhaps it is time, as the march isremembered on this 50th anniversary, foranother speech — not a speech about the20th century, but about the 21st. It is timefor a speech not about yesterday, but abouttoday and tomorrow.

In these moments that we rememberthe March on Washington and those whosacrificed their lives to change ourAmerica for the better, the memory of

those brave men and women call to us tomuster the courage necessary to continuethe struggle for jobs and freedom. Theirmemory calls us to correct the course ofreckless and ruinous excesses of the U.S.government and her corporate bosses.

We, like them, realize that theAmerican Empire has swallowed theRepublic those flawed founding fathersattempted to create and we must join theirardent struggle for a democracy. There isa deep moral basis for the nation we seek.But when justice does not roll down likewater, it must well up like mountainsfrom the hearts and hard work of thosewho will have nothing else.

A NEW DREAM FOR NEW TIMESSo, it is time to propose a new speech, a

speech not about yesterday, but abouttoday. Let us imagine a speech about ourcontext given, not by the Rev. Dr. MartinLuther King Jr., for his was too eloquent avoice and presence. Rather, let us imaginebeing the speechwriter for one of the rabbisor some preacher of no particular fame.

And let us imagine ourselves preparing,not for a million-person march to the stepsof the Lincoln Memorial, let us imagine aspeech published in a non-mainstreamnewspaper. Let us imagine a missive writ-ten in an underground newspaper dedicatedto the same notions of justice, jobs, free-dom and housing that the movement 50years ago had. Perhaps the Rabbi wouldwrite something like this:

I want to begin by saying that we live inperilous times. I will mention in a momentsome present perils, but aren’t all times per-ilous for the poor and oppressed? Historyrecords natural disasters, famines, plagues,and volcanic eruptions, as well as the moreinsidious corruptions from human hands —the ravages of war, the genocidal adven-tures and the gold-lust greed that drivesthem both. History declares that the saga ofhuman society is replete with travesty.

Still, we are here to remember that thegloom of oppressive darkness has beendispelled again and again by those whowould shine a light against it: Moses,Miriam and their band of formerly unor-ganized brickmakers; Mary and Josephwho raised that trouble-making, para-digm-shifting Jesus; Harriet Tubman,Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth CadyStanton, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner andall those whose ferocity struck the pillarsof America until slavery lost itsrespectability and had to slip behind barsand concrete walls. May I mention theLakota Chief, Crazy Horse, who deeplyunderstood the difference between what

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech to a massive gathering in frontof the Lincoln Memorial at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963.

See Long March to a New Dream page 7

AP Photo/File

The Long March to aNew Dream of Justicefrom page 1

September 2013 ST R E E T SP I R I T 7

God had given and what white national-ists had taken away?

I could go on and list the past contestsbetween darkness and the beacons of lightthat dispelled it, but it would be an errorto compare the battles of history with theconflicts of today. Every age has its ownparticular clarion call. So, without dimin-ishing the perils of the past or exaggerat-ing the peril of the present, I want to saythat the work that is extant for our lives issobering. The work that is before us isdark and daunting and we will need thecollective light of our allegiances and wemust forge strategic alliances to dispel thedark forces arrayed against us.

There are many troubles that afflict ustoday. If we were to begin with the longview, we would hear Mother Earth herselfgroan beneath the weight of our licen-tiousness. Peak oil is past and yet ouraddiction has us digging in tar sands like ajunkie sucking at the residue of a crackpipe. The ecological turmoil of climatechange is the unspoken cause for newwars and exported tyranny. We are at warwith the earth. Instead of marriage, wewould put the earth on the street and pimpher to our own degradation and demise.

Desperate for a high, American capital-ism furrows into her soil, decapitates hermountains, pollutes her rivers and streams,and soils the air we are meant to breathe.The exploitation of the earth was neverright and has always been unjust. Insteadof the human race existing in harmonywith the earth, humanity has become theyeast infection of the planet, exchangingthe earth’s sugars for carbon dioxide andalcohol. We are at war with the earth and Iam here to tell you, my dear reader, thatthe earth will win.

And let us consider this great nation inwhich we exist. Let us consider the ubiqui-tous surveillance, which principally arrivesto further our economic exploitation, butquickly becomes a tool for those drunkwith power to further exploit and control“We the people.” The terror, it seems, isnot so much the snooping capabilities ofour government as it is the near total lackof any expectation of privacy.

We have a generation of people whohave given away their right to privacy aswell as yours and mine for the conve-nience of desktop consumption. We havea generation and a half of citizen con-sumers who do not understand that thedollar store has come to suck the very lastpennies from their community.

We have citizens who are anesthetizedand inured to the squeeze of impoverish-ment even as they disparage the necessityof workers organizing for fair and just

wages. The OurWalmart workers, the fastfood workers, those working in the recy-cling centers around the Bay Area who arebeginning to strike and call for just treat-ment and living wages, are on the frontlines of a movement for all of us.

Let me mention what EdwardSnowden has proven and many of us sus-pected all along. The America we live inis committed to the unconstitutional andillegal recording and keeping of everyelectronic communication we produce.

A WORLD GONE WRONGAmerica is invested in the extrajudicial,

immoral and randomized, murderous dronekillings anywhere the president chooses.We have kill lists and military tribunals.We have created and maintain the nether-world Guantanamo gulag, and torture theimprisoned at will. We incarcerate more ofour citizens than any nation on the planetand allow the investor class to gorge them-selves on a privately owned and operatedprison-industrial complex.

All this under an administration the leftis said to have won. I’m not sure if the leftwon, but I am positive the right didn’t lose.

The Obama administration is nice,intelligent and affable, but from its rabidattacks on whistleblowers to its zealousdeportation of now over a million men,women and children, the actions of thisadministration should forever remove itfrom the Pollyanna-ish notion that it hasany left-of-center leanings.

Professor Obama continues to teach usthe lessons of his predecessor and hasadded some new ones besides. UnderObama, Lynn Stewart languishes inprison, perhaps condemned to an adminis-trative execution as her breast cancermetastasizes to teach us that lawyers owetheir allegiance to the state and not to anynotion of law.

Julian Assange, safe for the moment inthe Ecuadorian embassy, and EdwardSnowden rightly fear for their freedom,lives and safety, and are persecuted to teachus that journalist have only the right to pub-lish the authorized lies of the state.

Widespread unemployment and under-employment amidst rusting bridges andunpaved roads are there to teach us to begfor our wages and be content with what-ever crumbs fall from the table to us.

Quantitative Easing is destroying thevalue of our money and has created hun-dreds of billions of dollars to bail out“banksters” who have already drowned intheir greed and our pensions. They havealready eaten our homes and savingsaccounts. This U.S. brand of austerityexists to teach us how to be slaves again.

We can no longer blame Bush orCheney. We can no longer blame just theRepublicans, but we must add to the listof infamy President Obama and theDemocratic Party he leads. Americashould be better than this.

But let us not just speak in nationalterms. The City of Oakland, after tenyears of watchful oversight of the policedepartment, still has not yielded any sig-nificant positive results. We change policechiefs like Imelda Marcos changed shoes.Budgets passed at one City Council meet-ing disappear in the next. Jobs promisedin the first year of a project disappearbefore the second year commences.

The Port of Oakland, like Piedmont,exists as an island of prosperity in theslough of despond and despair, unaccount-able and unrelated to the citizens to whomit belongs. Our children are unsafe even inour homes. The Oakland Unified SchoolDistrict, once the premier and envy of thenation, now languishes as an embarrass-ment to the notion of education.

RISING TIDE OF POVERTYThere is much work to be done in our

city. Yet there is not enough political willand nascent unfocused people power toeffectively put worker and work together ina manner that reads “living wage job.”

There’s plenty of work to be done inOakland and there is plenty of work thatneeds to be done all over America — andthere are plenty of hard-working peoplewilling and able to perform the tasks thatdesperately need to be done. There is justno pay offered in exchange for the labor.

There are trends in America that seemdisposed to allow most of us to slide backinto slavery. What else are we to call theuncompensated labor we are all asked toembrace? City employees are asked to takefurlough days, hourly workers are asked toclock out but continue to work, truck dri-vers are called independent in order toexport the cost of delivering goods andexploit their time and labor. The list couldgo on and the travesty is real.

Poverty is on the rise in America, butwe are not poor because we are lazy. Ourwork as well as our lives are disrespected,not because of who we are or because weare devoted to unprofitable vocations. Weare caught in a spiral of declining wagesand increasing poverty as a result of delib-erate decisions made by men (they aremostly men) who would impoverish ageneration if it would enrich them andtheir benefactors.

America’s trade policies, financial regu-lations and laws lead to the impoverishmentof many of its citizens. Any politician withintelligence or insight knows this. Still, law-makers are not solely responsible for theunraveled U.S. economy. The very politicalsystem of our nation from its inception har-bored ill will for the un-propertied poor,women and all but those with the power tobecome “white men.”

America has yet to fully franchise hercitizens. In the past, it offered scatteredopportunities for those willing to sacrificefamily, community and, for some, identityto ascend on a rising wave of wealth. But

the private accumulation always came at acost that left more ruin or waste in itswake than gain. Now that we languish inthe waste and debris of America’s war onthe poor, what shall we do?

Fifty years ago, there were vibrant andactive organizations fighting to remedythe American misdeeds. There was theNAACP, SNCC, Congress for RacialEquality, The National Urban League,The American Jewish Congress, TheSouthern Christian LeadershipConference, and the AFL-CIO, amongmany others, including many majordenominations. Today many of theseorganizations remain active and are stillfighting for jobs and freedom.

Now, they are augmented by an alpha-bet soup of organizations across thenation. Here in the Bay Area, we have theFaith Alliance for a Moral Economy(FAME), Clergy and Laity United forEconomic Justice (CLUE), and the EllaBaker Center. Spreading across thenation, there are organizations such asGreen for All, Interfaith Worker Justicemovement, Jobs With Justice, CriticalResistance and many more.

What we need in America, even morethan another organization, is a new imagi-nation. “We the people” need to have afresh imagination that leads to positivelyinvigorated conversations about what itmeans to be human and what it means tobe an American. And we must begin thatconversation understanding that what itmeans to be a human being must alwaystrump what it means to be an American.

THE FOUR FREEDOMSFranklin D. Roosevelt, in his presiden-

tial address to the U. S. Congress onJanuary 6, 1941, sought to fashion thisAmerica and the world on four freedoms.The first is the freedom of speech andexpression. The second is the freedom toworship God in one’s own way (if onechooses). The third is the freedom fromwant. Finally, his fourth was the freedomfrom fear. The moment we live in is des-perate for these freedoms.

Well, that would be my speech. For thenext few years there will be more oppor-tunities to commemorate the 50th anniver-sary of various milestones of the CivilRights movement. When those momentsarrive, let us not use them solely toremember what others have done.

Rather, let us use each rememberedmilestone to empower, embolden andrevitalize the work we are engaging inevery day to bring jobs, freedom and jus-tice. And like the bold activists of thepast, let us use the power of nonviolenceto create an America without the villainyof war, the desperation of poverty, or theneed for avatars.

Rev. Brian K. Woodson is an Oaklandpastor and an activist for social justice.

Bayard Rustin at a news briefing on the March onWashington in the Statler Hotel, August 27, 1963.

Photo by Warren K. Leffler

A. Philip Randolph, union organizer and civil rightsleader who envisioned the March on Washington, 1963.

Photo by John Bottega, New York World-Telegram & Sun

John Lewis, civil rights leader and organizer of theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Photo by Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News and World Report

from page 6

The Long March to aNew Dream of Justice

September 2013ST R E E T SP I R I T8

by Dylan Thiermann

Since October 12, 2001, a group ofpeople from faith-based organiza-tions such as the Episcopal PeaceFellowship, the American Friends

Service Committee, Church WomenUnited, San Francisco Friends Meeting,and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship havebeen vigiling by the old San FranciscoFederal Building on Thursdays from noonto 1:00 p.m. to protest the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan.

The vigilers stand at the corner ofLarkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue,some holding a silent witness for peace,others chatting with each other and withthe occasional friendly passer-by. Carshonk with approval as they drive by, andpassengers on sightseeing buses cheer,enthused by the message of peace andnonviolence.

The vigilers hold signs reading, amongother things: “War is Terrorism,” “Standwith Us Against All Wars” and “Bring theTroops Home Now.” A large banner reads“Quaker Witness for Peace and Justice.”

The vigil started out fairly small, witharound 16 people attending in 2002, andthen grew as U.S. military involvement inthe Middle East began in earnest.

Markley Morris, a Quaker and long-time vigil participant, recalls that duringthe week before the United States invadedIraq, “People were roaming the streets ofSan Francisco, looking for a way toprotest, to witness against the war.... I’dguess maybe a hundred people joined thevigil that day but I have no idea howmany knew who we were and were actu-ally opposed to all war.”

Since then, the vigil has declined innumbers, but it has continued in steadfastopposition to war. Although the vigilersmay be few, they are dedicated to the dis-play of their nonviolent beliefs.

Stephen Matchett, holding the bannerproudly, sums up the vigil’s purpose inone eloquent sentence. “We are witness-ing to the existence of an alternative towar-making as a response to beingattacked,” he says.

Other vigilers echo Matchett: “War isfutile,” says Morris. “By and large, peopledo not want war. The government has tosell them war.”

As Michele Gloor puts it: “Sending inplanes and guns just makes things worse.”

This neighborhood has experienced vari-ous peace events since the beginning of theIraq war. In 2006, activists set out hundredsof boots on Civic Center Plaza to representsoldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thevast field of empty combat boots in front ofCity Hall stood lined up as though in mili-tary formation — silent testimony to themounting fatalities caused by the overseaswars waged by the United States.

Phyllis Malandra also recalls the numer-ous “die-ins” that were common earlier inthe vigil’s history, where peace activists laydown in front of the Federal Building,blocking the entrance, as if they were deadsoldiers. She remembers that the Episcopalbishop of California, in full ceremonialdress, once proceeded formally from GraceCathedral to participate in the die-in. Allthese demonstrations helped bring attentionto the vigilers and their message.

In lieu of violent intervention, the vig-ilers would like to see the United Statesrely more on diplomacy, sanctions, andpeaceful aid to achieve its internationalaims. Many of them have spent their lives

working towards this goal. Lois Roberts participated in Fremont

peace marches as a teacher. She recallsthat they started out “friendly, almost pic-nic-like,” and then became “hairier” asmore people’s kids were drafted. Matchettremembers taking part in a demonstrationin the late 1960s that closed the highwayillegally in order to march down it.

Morris protested issues such as nucleartesting and the Vietnam War during the1960s. Gloor has taken part in peace vig-ils and demonstrations in Washington,D.C. For them, activism was a naturalresponse to the social turmoil of the ‘60s.

People began coming to the vigil for avariety of reasons. When Matchett wasgrowing up, his parents vigiled near theFederal Building in Seattle, so he was usedto the practice. He joined the San Franciscovigil when it began in October 2001 inresponse to the bombing of Afghanistan.

Malandra used to go to the dental schoolin San Francisco on Thursdays for her den-tal treatments. It was convenient for her togo to the vigil afterwards. Gloor was con-cerned about the Iraq war. After she retired,she became involved in the 2003 protestsagainst the war, and then joined the vigil.

Roberts didn’t believe that there wereweapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Shefelt that it was the people’s duty to try and

get the U.S. government out of war. What all the vigilers shared was a love

of peace and a distrust of war. They haveencountered some interesting charactersduring their weekly vigils. Once almostevery vigil, a man driving a car shouts,“Boring!” as he passes by. The vigilershave dubbed him “the boring man.”

Matchett recalls that the man oncesaid, “Something-something ... go back toWalnut Creek.” He adds: “I think he’smistaking us for someone else.”

Says Malandra: “Maybe we’d be lessboring if we did a little dance.”

This is a good example of the kind offriendly banter that goes on during thevigil and makes it an enjoyable way toexpress one’s political opposition to war.

The vigilers do not worry about theirlack of influence on government policy. “Ihave no illusion that sitting here is goingto change things,” says Roberts jokingly,“but I like sitting in the sun.”

It is simply an important part of theirspiritual and political lives. “It satisfiesmy conscience,” says Gloor humorously.

On the serious side, Malandra describesit as a form of public witness and weeklypractice. “I feel it is necessary to displayone’s feelings on government policies tothe government so that your position isacknowledged and respected,” she says.

Some vigilers also discuss the role oftoday’s youth in political affairs. Robertslaments that youth are complicit in thegovernment’s wars. She finds it frustrat-ing that young people go into the militaryto get their education paid for.

As I talk with Roberts and Gloor, I beginto wonder if their generation was morepolitically active than the youth of today.When I voice this concern, Gloor notes thatdue to the absence of a draft, the war inAfghanistan does not affect youth to thesame extent as the war in Vietnam did,meaning that youth are not driven to protestas much. She is not sure if youth are gener-ally less politically active, though.

Some of the vigilers still conduct peacework outside the vigil. For example,Matchett works for the Alternatives toViolence Project in California women’sprisons. However, for many, age limitstheir ability to continue further peacework, making the vigil their only chanceto practice the principles they stand by.

In this way, the vigil assumes its mostmeaningful purpose: giving people a con-venient way to voice their concerns aboutthe direction this nation is heading.

“I am very thankful for the vigil,” saysMarkley Morris. “Without it, there’s noeffective way to express the things webelieve in.”

S.F. Peace Vigil: A Witness to Nonviolent Action

Dedicated activists have steadfastly sustained a weekly peace vigil in San Francisco for the past 12 years. Markley Morris photo

This imposing "mobile command center" showed up at the S.F. peace vigil on June 3, 2004. Homeland Securityparked the intimidating command center near the peace vigil. A guard told the vigilers it cost $3 million.

Markley Morrisphoto

“War is futile. By and large,people do not want war. Thegovernment has to sell themwar.” — Markley Morris, S.F. peace vigil