Restore Affirmative Action & Overturn Prop 209

9th Circuit Hearing on Prop 209:

Monday, Feb. 13th, 8:30AM
9th Circuit Court of Appeals
95 – 7th St. (at Mission), S.F. (near Civic Center BART)

California’s majority black, Latina/o, and Native American students are being systematically denied the basic right to public higher education because of the anti-affirmative action law, Proposition 209, and the UC administration’s refusal to take positive action to counter it. On February 13, BAMN’s lawsuit to overturn Proposition 209 goes before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This case, together with BAMN’s lawsuit against an identical initiative in Michigan, will eventually go before the U.S. Supreme Court and can become our generation’s Brown v. Board of Education. Fill the courtroom and make your voice heard.

VICTORY! Monteith Branch Library is Re-opened! 1 down, 3 to go!
Build the New Civil Rights Movement – Save Dr. King’s Vision for Detroit
We Demand Lincoln, Richard and Mark Twain Libraries be re-opened NOW  and Stop the Decimation of Our Neighborhoods and City! Defend Our Dignity!

COME OUT AND USE THE POWER OF OUR NUMBERS TO STOP THE EVICTION OF RICHARD LIBRARY!

ALL OUT to RICHARD Library

Movers removing books from Richard Library

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Starting at 7:00 AM, for as long as it takes

Richard Branch: 9876 Grand River Ave (one block west of Livernois)

• 4:00-5:30PM rally at Richard Library Mon and Wed
• 4:00-5:30PM RALLY  at Lincoln Library Tues and Thurs
• Call 313-585-3637 if you see boxes being taken out of the Library and we will come immediately, but also stay and demand that the items not be taken out

IF THERE ARE A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE SURROUNDING THE LIBRARY THE TRUCKS WILL NOT EVEN PULL UP.  We must do this every morning until the library is re-opened.  If we start with a smaller group of people, we can take the items that the movers are moving out of the building, back into the building or we can block the doors of the library.  We need to be more determined to keep the items in the library than the movers are to take them out.  The people who are moving the items out of Richard Library know that what they are doing is wrong. If we give them an excuse not to do it they will welcome it. This is the tactic that our community needs to employ to stop the closure of our library, and in the future, to prevent their friends and neighbors from being evicted from their homes.

We are winning so far, but the fight needs to be strengthened. On Tuesday, January 10, Detroit City Council unanimously approved an emergency resolution to keep all the libraries open. The resolution calls on Governor Snyder and the Michigan state legislators to appropriate some of the more than one billion dollar surplus in the state coffers to keep our libraries open. On Jan 17^th the Library Commission voted to re-open Monteith. We can get the others libraries opened if we keep pushing on all fronts.

If we mobilize our communities we have the power to determine the destiny of our city. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and the other great leaders of the last civil rights movement did not have the money or the support of any of the mainstream politicians. What they did have was masses of people prepared to act, and the determination to organize and win.

Dr. King understood that our strength is in our numbers. If we can get the people of Detroit to understand the power in our numbers again and to take direct action, we can build a new civil rights movement in our city that, like the civil rights movement of Dr. King, can defeat the rich and the powerful and the politicians who get in our way.

The fight to save our branch libraries can play an important role in building the new civil rights movement. If we use the power of our numbers, the people of Detroit have the power to make Detroit what we want it to be. We are the only force that can prevent the further destruction of our city and create a Detroit that serves the interests of the vast majority of Detroiters.

click the picture to download this victory poster to print and post everywhere!

The UC-Berkeley library occupiers won their demand to fully restore  the library hours to Fall 2011 levels and hire a full-time new librarian to permanently staff these hours. At about 7:30PM Saturday night, the administration signed a written agreement that fully met the occupation’s demands.

Occupiers celebrate holding up the signed agreement.

The administration signed the following agreement:
“1. On Monday, January 23rd signs will go up that the library hours will be restored to the Fall 2011 schedule — opening at 9:00AM and closing at 6:00PM on weekdays, and open from 1:00 to 6:00PM on Saturday and Sunday. On an interim basis staffing for this position will be by Undergraduate or Graduate student workers, hired under normal procedures. The first day with the new hours will depend on how quickly students for this work can be recruited. The recruitment will begin this Monday morning January 23rd.

“2. The Library commits to post a position to support the full circulation services needed by all users of the Anthropology Library as soon as this can be written and approved and to commence interviews for the position within 30 days of the signature of this Agreement.

“Signed by Administration Representative: Tom Leonard, University Librarian on January 21, 2012.”

(Note: The Anthropology faculty have agreed to help staff the Library’s full hours beginning Monday, Jan. 23rd until the interim student hire is made.)

Join the occupation of UC-Berkeley’s Anthropology Library! It’s in Rm. 230 of Kroeber Hall, at the intersection of Bancroft + College.

The occupation of the Anthropology Library to restore its full hours has begun! We can save it if we continue to simply come, study, and keep it open.

We are writing from the occupation/”study-in” of the Anthropology Library in UCB’s Kroeber Hall. Lots of people are here keeping the library open to the public, and to reverse the administration’s move to reduce library staff hours by nearly 50%. The Anthropology faculty voted unanimously today to support the occupation, and professors are here side by side with students and community members. More of them are signing up to take shifts with us over the next days for as long as it takes to reverse this cut.

JOIN US! We especially need people here during the Library’s non-official hours: Friday before 12pm, and Friday starting at 4 pm in order to hold it through the weekend.

By winning this, we can make this the movement’s first victory of 2012 and provide a model  for winning the rest of our demands, including doubling underrepresented minority enrollment at Cal, restoring affirmative action, winning a UC-wide Dream Act, lowering fees to their 2009 level, and dropping all criminal and student code of conduct charges against campus protesters.  Let’s start with an early victory now!

Bring a sleeping bag; bring your friends; bring your homework; bring your passion to defend public education.

VICTORY! Monteith Branch library will reopen next month!
Build the New Civil Rights Movement – Save Dr. King’s Vision for Detroit
There is Power in Our Numbers–Join BAMN

Now is the time for students, young, old and in-between, from Mason, Persing, Nolan, the churches, block clubs, neighbors and everyone to organize and mobilize to keep Lincoln Library open. Our fight to save all four branch libraries is succeeding. The libraries were supposed to be shuttered, stripped bare and boarded up in December, but the lights and heat are still on, and the vast majority of our books and computers are still inside. As of December 22, 2011, four libraries were supposed to be closed, but yesterday, that number went down to three, after our continuous pressure to keep the libraries open.  If more people join the fight we can reopen the Lincoln Branch as well.

If more people join the fight we can reopen the Lincoln Branch as well.

BAMN protests to keep Lincoln Library open

Tuesday, January 17: 

12 NOON Rally at the Main Library(Cass Side)

1:30 pm: Pack the Library Commission Meeting

This Tuesday, January 17, at noon, we have an opportunity to drive forward our fight to victory. If we turn out a large crowd for our rally and fill up the Library Commission meeting room and assert our will, we can make the commissioners vote to reverse their shameful decision to close the Lincoln, Monteith, Richard and Mark Twain branches.

Our fight to save the four branch libraries is gaining momentum. The libraries were supposed to be shuttered, stripped bare and boarded up in December, but the lights and heat are still on, and the vast majority of our books and computers are still inside. The community has made it overwhelmingly clear how important the libraries are to the safety and education of Detroit’s youth, and to the integrity and future of our neighborhoods. We have also demonstrated our willingness and determination to fight.

On Tuesday, January 10, Detroit City Council unanimously approved an emergency resolution to keep all the libraries open. The resolution calls on Governor Snyder and the Michigan state legislators to appropriate some of the more than one billion dollar surplus in the state coffers to keep our libraries open.

Save Dr. King’s Dream for Detroit!

If we mobilize our communities we have the power to determine the destiny of our city. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and the other great leaders of the last civil rights movement did not have the money or the support of any of the mainstream politicians. What they did have was masses of people prepared to act, and the determination to organize and win.

 Come Out and Use the Power of our Numbers!

Dr. King understood that our strength is in our numbers. If we can get the people of Detroit to understand the power in our numbers again and to take direct action, we can build a new civil rights movement in our city that, like the civil rights movement of Dr. King, can defeat the rich and the powerful and the politicians who get in our way.

The fight to save our branch libraries can play an important role in building the new civil rights movement. If we use the power of our numbers, the people of Detroit have the power to make Detroit what we want it to be. We are the only force that can prevent the further destruction of our city and create a Detroit that serves the interests of the vast majority of Detroiters.

Join BAMN, the Friends of Monteith Library and people from across the city to rally and pack the library commission meeting this Tuesday.

Click here for a pdf copy of the flyer

We voted on demands and we intend to win them.

Why we must mobilize to the January 19^th UC Regents Meeting:

Our enemies are relying on the month long Christmas break to have quelled our movement. They know that when we went home to our families, many of our parents, while expressing their support for the movement’s aims, were quick to remind us of all they’ve sacrificed for our education, and to hammer home our duty to uplift our families from poverty. This is the semester, they’ve said to us, to bear down and get the grades, the scholarship, the internship, to take more units than ever, to graduate sooner in order to save our families money and ourselves debt, or to ensure we can graduate before fees are raised beyond our ability to pay.

The best way to fight for our families is to step forward as leaders of this new movement

The truth is though, that this is no way out for ourselves or our families from the clutches of poverty or the degradation of racism and anti-immigrant bigotry separate from our young movement’s ability to raise the living standards and opportunities of everyone in our community. We are continuing their fight for us, and our education, but we have taken their battle a step further by not only fighting for our families but fighting for all oppressed people.

Our parents may not understand, but the best way we have to fight for them, their dignity, equality and prosperity is to step forward as leaders of this new movement and fight to steer it in a direction that can achieve victory for our demands and put the oppressed in power.

We not only learned who was on what side in history, but we learned that our side could win!

Those of us who’ve been a part of this new movement experienced something we could have never learned in the classroom. When we stood side-by-side and locked arms, facing down police sent by our “liberal” administration to beat us into submission, we felt more connected to our classmates than we had our entire time in college. We knew, even as we struggled to put it into words, that lines were being drawn and sides being taken. Our administration, chancellor, the police, the regents, and their private backers were on one side, and that side is fighting for a UC system that is increasingly elite, privatized and segregated. The future they want for our education is one in which we are in constant competition with our classmates, our primary objective in class is to figure out what the professor wants to hear and college is only a place to get a career, and no longer a place to question, to try new things, to discover who we are and what we believe, and then to fight for it. The choice before us was stark, and we chose to hold our ground. And we won! So many people turned out to defend their classmates, their campus and their vision for education that the police were the ones who had to retreat by the end of the night! We not only learned who was on what side in history, but we learned that our side could win!

Now is not the time to wait, or cool off

We cannot forget this victory, or our part in winning it. The normal ebb and flow of student activism would have dictated that it is now time for a return to business as usual after a long break such as this, and we must make sure this is not the case. We are in a different era now. We made it different. We’re different. We’ve worked too hard to get into college to be denied the right to graduate because of fee hikes and privatization, and we’ve learned too much to think we can make this fight as individuals, separate from a movement, and make this world into the sort of world we want for ourselves, our families and our communities.

We are in a different era now. We made it different. We’re different.

Now is not the time to wait, or cool off. We should not wait for the Regents to propose another outrageous fee increase or devastating round of cuts to mobilize to shut down their meeting. The Regents have had to back off of their previous 81% fee hike proposal. This is our time to press our advantage and bring our demands for DOUBLING UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITY ENROLLMENT, RESTORING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION  a UC WIDE DREAM ACT, LOWERING TUITION BACK TO 2009 LEVELS, and  DROP THE CRIMINAL/STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT CHARGES AGAINST ALL CAMPUS PROTESTERS to them.

We have unfinished business with these Regents

We must make clear to them that they can have no rest, no peace or reprieve until they have met the movement’s demands, and that until they do we will raise Hell at every meeting, press conference and public appearance they make.

In short, we have unfinished business with these Regents. They must meet our demands, or suffer the consequences every meeting until they do.

Download the PDF version and distribute it at your school! 

Jan19th2012Regentsmeetingflyer

Sign Up To Say You’ll Come!

BAMN members and community activists continue the fight to stop the closure of Detroit branch libraries. This is a fight to defend our neighborhoods and our dignity and stop the decimation of our city by building our power through mass organizing to increase our numbers and by carrying out the following tactic:

“IF THERE ARE A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE SURROUNDING THE LIBRARY THE TRUCKS WILL NOT EVEN PULL UP.   If we start with a smaller group of people, we can take the items that the movers are moving out of the building, back into the building.  We need to be more determined to keep the items in the library than the movers are to take them out.  The people who are moving the items out of Lincoln know that what they are doing is wrong. If we give them an excuse not to do it they will welcome it. This is the tactic that our community needs to employ to stop the closure of our library, and in the future, to prevent their friends and neighbors from being evicted from their homes.”

We continue to hold regular pickets in front of all the branches threatened with closure. All our actions have been met with sympathetic press coverage which has helped to get out the word and make saving the libraries synonymous with saving Detroit.

Our fight has kept the books, computers and furniture in our libraries, and they are not boarded up.

Now the State of Michigan has declared a one BILLION dollar surplus in the state treasury! We will continue to mobilize to force the state to appropriate some of that surplus to keeping our libraries open.

On January 10th we persuaded the Detroit City Council to pass a resolution calling on the Governor and the Michigan State Legislature to appropriate funds from this year’s State surplus to reopen Detroit’s Lincoln, Monteith, Richard and Mark Twain library branches immediately, for the rest of the fiscal year 2012, while the Library Commission seeks future funding sources.

Next week we will picket Governor Snyder’s home on MLK Day and go to the next meeting of the Detroit Library Commission to demand that they reverse their vote to close the branch libraries, or step down.

Our Actions are Changing History

Before BAMN intervened and organized an occupation of Lincoln library to prevent its closure and then launched the anti-eviction strategy, people from the community had circulated and signed petitions, written letters, raised hell at the library commission meetings and  talked to many politicians who expressed sympathy for our cause. But none of the politicians took the action needed to save our library, even though they know the money is there, because they believe that the only people who get to decide the future of Detroit are the rich and powerful bankers and billionaires, who have been systematically destroying our schools and our neighborhoods.

Dr. King and Rosa Parks Did Not Have the Support of the Mainstream Politicians.

What They Did Have Was Masses of People Prepared to Act

The politicians are wrong.  If we mobilize our communities we have the power to determine the destiny of our city.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and the other great leaders of the last civil rights movement did not have the money or the support of any of the mainstream politicians.  What they did have was masses of people prepared to act, and the determination to win.  Dr. King understood that our strength is in our numbers.  If we can get the people of Detroit to understand the power in our numbers again and to take direct action, we can build a new civil rights movement in our city, that, like the civil rights movement of Dr. King, can defeat the rich and the powerful and the politicians who get in our way.  The fight to save the libraries can play an important role in building the new civil rights movement.  If we use the power of our numbers, the people of Detroit have the power to make Detroit what we want it to be.  We are the only force that can prevent the further destruction of our city and create a Detroit that serves the interests of the vast majority of Detroiters.

JOIN BAMN

This is our unfinished business with the UC regents:

Thursday, January 19th at 8:00am at UC Riverside

UC Riverside Highlander Union Building
900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA

• Remove Chancellor Birgeneau and Chancellor Katehi!
• FREE SPEECH for students: amnesty for protesters, charge the police who brutalized protesters
• Reverse the fee hikes, cuts, and layoffs
• Increase underrepresented minority student enrollment: Restore affirmative action and overturn Prop 209
• Make all UC campuses sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants;
• Implement a UC-wide Dream Act
• Equal benefits and retirement security for all UC workers

Detroit Library Branch Closure Protested Again: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Detroit Library Branch Closure Protested Again: MyFoxDETROIT.com

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