A couple weeks ago, Geoff, Joe and I ventured over to west Oakland to march to the port with the Occupiers. It had been a while since they were kicked out of Frank Ogawa Plaza so we were anxious to see what was going to happen. Would the police block them from closing the port? Would the teamsters and longshoremen support or oppose the protest? We fell in line to find out.
It was a pretty scenic march, I must say. The march started at the BART station on 7th street, then headed toward downtown, but turned south on Adeline, on the bridge over the railroad tracks and into the port.
It was actually kind of eerie marching into the twilight, with lone figures scattered on the road in the distance. You couldn’t tell if they were waiting to join the march or stop it.
Looking back on the column present a pretty powerful view.
There are always a few bands playing in this kind of march. This time there was a Dixieland jazz marching band. They were rocking the march for sure, and keeping spirits up as the Occupiers ventured into the desolate port area.
The further into the port we got, the more supporters the march picked up. There was even a woman doing acrobatics on a train signal. Nothing screams “protest” like some acrobatics.
Joe decided he wanted to get on the train signal too, since it would make a good vantage point.
The march went on and on past all the different shipping terminals.
And eventually met up with the Occupiers who had done the march from City Hall an hour earlier and the ones who had done the same march from BART 12 hours earlier. There were thousands of people hanging out in the street and blocking the main gates into the terminals. We learned that there had been police violence at other port shutdowns along the west coast that day, so the Occupiers in Oakland decided to extend the occupation into the next shift, which started at 3am.
This group was cheering as the march approached.
There was a flatbed truck parked in the middle of the street with a rap concert on it. In between rap songs the different rappers were making speeches about racism and police brutality.
Not very far from the rap show was a punk band alternating between playing rowdy punk songs (complete with a mosh pit) and making polical-economic statements.
With the rappers riling up the black people and punk rockers riling up the white people, I couldn’t imagine the peace being maintained for very long. Some kind of violence would surely happen.
But Alas! There was no violence. We were hungry so we made the 2.3-mile hike back to 7th Street, during which we were presented with this amazing moonrise over downtown Oakland! Were the Occupiers successful? They had indeed shut down all west coast shipping for a day, but only time will tell if anything changes long term.
.:Bohan
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