Community events and activities for the weekend of November 4 – 6. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!
As many as 10,000 people participated in the Occupy Oakland “day of action” Wednesday. Reporters from Oakland North were on hand to capture all of the events of the day. The above slideshow is a series of photographs from throughout the day.
A day during which thousands of people attended protests and marched through Oakland wound up this evening with as many as 10,000 protesters marching across the Highway 880 ramp and shutting down the Port of Oakland.
Follow us throughout the day for updates on the latest happenings from around the city. Or on twitter @northoaklandnow. We are tweeting today, to followers around the world, in Spanish, Arabic, French and Urdu!
Marches and protests continued Wednesday as part of the day of action organized by Occupy Oakland. Around 11:30 am, the Oakland Educational Association (OEA) teachers union, high school students and parents of children who attend the five Oakland elementary schools up for closure gathered in the outdoor plaza at Laney college in support of today’s strike.
About a dozen protesters – including Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin — turned out Wednesday morning to join a day of action called by protesters at Occupy Oakland. The Richmond group plans to march almost 10 miles down San Pablo Avenue to join protesters gathering in Oakland’s Frank Ogawa plaza – or, as protesters have christened it, Oscar Grant square – at noon.
Occupy Oakland activists launched the first of three rallies at 14th and Broadway Wednesday morning, with Angela Davis and others speaking. Occupy Oakland, along with out-of-towners and employees from local unions, will meet at the intersection again Wednesday evening to converge on the Port of Oakland and attempt to shut it down.
On Wednesday morning, Mayor Jean Quan issued a statement regarding today’s day of action. Reprinted here in its entirety:
Follow us throughout the day for updates on the latest happenings from around the city. Or on twitter @northoaklandnow. We are tweeting today, to followers around the world, in Spanish, Arabic, French and Urdu!
At 1:14 pm on Tuesday, the Port of Oakland issued the following statement, titled “Open Letter to the Community of Oakland,” with regard to the planned general strike tomorrow, Wednesday, November 2 organized by Occupy Oakland.
Early Tuesday morning, the Oakland Police Officer’s Association released the following “Open letter to the citizens of Oakland,” reprinted here in its entirety:
On Friday, Oakland Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan issued a message to the community, which was sent to news publications, regarding police officers’ use of force during the Tuesday night clash between Occupy Oakland protesters and law enforcement, and the department’s position on the ongoing downtown demonstrations.
A jubilant crowd of Occupy Oakland supporters poured into the city’s downtown streets late last night, after their “general assembly” approved supporting a citywide strike Nov. 2. But the crowd’s efforts to cross the bay to join the Occupy S.F. group were thwarted by BART officers, who shut down the 12th Street BART entrance amid cries of “Police brutality!” and “This is what democracy looks like!”
Reporters from Oakland North and Richmond Confidential are shooting cellphone videos Wednesday evening as the Occupy Oakland protests move noisily into the streets, with BART and city police trying to corral their movements and keep them out of downtown BART stations. This raw footage was captured between 9 and 11:00 PM.
After Mayor Jean Quan’s first public comments Wednesday on the police raids of the Occupy Oakland encampments the day before, protesters returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza and gathered a nighttime standing-room only crowd into a “general assembly” meeting outside City Hall. A long crowd discussion led to a late–night vote urging a citywide general strike Nov. 2.