21st National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality

Baa Ba Surya asked me to take a pic of him pointing to the name of his friend’s son, Nicholas Heyward Jr. yesterday at the 21st National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation at 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd where the rally commenced. (He might have been off a bit)

From the Facebook Event page on October 22, 2016 for the 21st National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation:

Saturday, 10/22

12:00PM assemble in front of the Harlem State Office Building at 163 W. 125th Street on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell for a rally and a march

5:00PM Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at 521 West 126th Street

October 22nd is a day that people around the nation have mobilized every year since 1996 for a National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. It is crucial that we bring forward a powerful National Day of Protest in cities and towns across the U.S. to challenge the ongoing violence against the people. This October 22nd, stand with thousands across the country to express our collective outrage, creativity, and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. On October 22nd, WEAR BLACK, FIGHT BACK!

JOIN US if there is already an October 22nd event in your area. CREATE one if you are in an area where there is currently no group organizing. For listings of activities in your area, check the website.

The October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation has been mobilizing every year since 1996 for a National Day of Protest on October 22nd, bringing together those under the gun and those not under the gun as a powerful voice to expose the epidemic of police brutality.

The Coalition also works on the Stolen Lives Project, which documents cases of killings by law enforcement nationwide. The second edition of the Stolen Lives book documents over 2000 cases in the 1990s alone. Volunteers are needed to help with the research and editing of cases since then. Please contact stolenlivesprojectonline@gmail.com for more information.

Contact October 22 Coalition-National at oct22national@gmail.com

Members of Revcom.us and the Revolution bookstore. It’s new location is now in Harlem on 132nd Street and Broadway.

We have Bob Avakian in the leadership role, from The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, “The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have. A Message, And A Call”. In Bob Avakian, the Chairman of our Party, we have the kind of rare and precious leader who does not come along very often. A leader who has given his heart, and all his knowledge, skills and abilities to serving the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity.

Bob Avakian came alive as a revolutionary in the 1960s—taking part in the great movements of those days, and especially working and struggling closely with the most advanced revolutionary force in the U.S. at that time, the Black Panther Party. Since then, and while many others have given up, Bob Avakian has worked and struggled tirelessly to find the way to go forward, having learned crucial lessons and built lasting organization that could continue the struggle, and aim to take it higher, while uniting with the same struggle throughout the world. He has kept on developing the theory and strategy for making revolution.

He played the key role in founding our Party in 1975, and since then he has continued the battle to keep the Party on the revolutionary road, to carry out work with a strong revolutionary orientation. He has deeply studied the experience of revolution—the shortcomings as well as the great achievements—and many different fields of human endeavor, through history and throughout the world—and he has brought the science and method of revolution to a whole new level, so that we can not only fight but really fight to win.

Bob Avakian has developed the scientific theory and strategic orientation for how to actually make the kind of revolution we need, and he is leading our Party as an advanced force of this revolution. He is a great champion and a great resource for people here, and indeed people all over the world. The possibility for revolution, right here, and for the advance of the revolution everywhere, is greatly heightened because of Bob Avakian and the leadership he is providing. And it is up to us to get with this leadership, to find out more about Bob Avakian and the Party he heads, to learn from his scientific method and approach to changing the world, to build this revolutionary movement with our Party at the core, to defend this leadership as the precious thing it is, and, at the same time, to bring our own experience and understanding to help strengthen the process of revolution and enable the leadership we have to keep on learning more and leading even better.

If you have not heard about this—if you don’t know about the revolution we need and the leadership we have—that is because those who now hold power do not want you to know…they keep this from you, or lie about it when they can’t keep word of it from getting out. And it is because our Party itself has not, until now, been consistent enough and bold enough in getting the word out, and acting on it. BUT WE ARE CHANGING ALL THAT—STARTING NOW. We must spread the word to every corner of this country…giving people the means to become part of this revolutionary movement, and organizing into this movement everyone who wants to make a contribution to it, who wants to work and fight, to struggle and sacrifice, not to keep this nightmare of a world going as it is but to bring a better world into being.

We mean what we say, and we will not back off or turn our backs on what we have started, on the people who need this revolution. We will keep coming back and digging in, to strengthen this movement for revolution, to build up the bases, spread the influence and organize the forces we need to make revolution. We will not be scared off, backed down or driven away.

From the Revcom.us sire: ‘A WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD, A MUCH BETTER FUTURE, IS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE WHAT WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR THAT WORLD, THAT FUTURE. IT IS UP TO US TO GET WITH IT AND GET TO THE CHALLENGE OF MAKING THIS HAPPEN. As our Party’s Constitution says: “The emancipation of all humanity: this, and nothing less than this, is our goal. There is no greater cause, no greater purpose to which to dedicate our lives.”‘

The mission of the Stolen Lives Project is to assemble a national list of people killed by law enforcement agents from 1990 to the present. Through grassroots efforts, over 2000 cases were documented in the second edition of the Stolen Lives book, which was published in 1999. Although just the tip of the iceberg, these 2000+ are evidence of a horrifying national epidemic of police brutality. The victims of police violence were part of our society, but rarely are their lives or names publicized, or the real circumstances surrounding their deaths investigated and made known. The Stolen Lives Project aims to restore some dignity to the lives lost. Though their lives have been stolen from us, we will not allow them to be forgotten.

Getting ready to march across 125th street to get the attention of the public, then head towards two precincts, the 28th then the 26th after the shooting death of Deborah Danner, a 66 year old woman who suffered the effects of this unjust system who was known to police to be in need of assistance and yet, was shot and killed by police last week.

Mayor Bill Di Blasio openly said the killing was uncalled for but, will the cop who killed her be held accountable? Police Commissioner James O’Neill almost immediately placed the sergeant, Hugh Barry, on modified duty and taken his gun and badge. Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference that the sergeant had not followed training or protocols for dealing with those with mental illness, and for an unknown reason had not used his Taser nor waited for officers trained to deal with people in crisis. “We failed”, O’Neill said as reported in the NY Times.

Solidarity statement from the organizers and protesters of the National Action Against Systemic Violence and Brutality by Australian Police and Corrections, read by Lorena Ambrosio of Mahina Movement at the 21st National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation in NYC:

https://www.facebook.com/kathie.cheng/videos/vb.1124225717/10210063282394971/

Members of the Green Party of Brooklyn were out yesterday in the much cooler and rainy weather to march for those whose lives have been taken by police nation wide.

Well Known activist Aunt Shirley holding sign from last years STOP Police TERROR #RiseUpOctober

Deborah Danner, one of the more recent citizens of NYC shot and killed by those we’re told are supposed to protect and serve.

Here is what Deborah Danner wrote about living with Schizophrenia that was published in the NY Times (Danner was KNOW to be a Special Needs person to NYPD in the area): I BELIEVE So-Called “Mental Illness” IS NATURE’S WAY OF TRYING TO WAKE US UP TO WHAT WE ARE DOING TO HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT. It should be dealt with like any other illness or injury. The link for the entire writing can be found here.

Marchers making their way along 125th St in Harlem yesterday for the 21st National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality – NYC

The Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN) exists to stop the slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences; racial profiling, a legal system that disproportionately impacts Blacks and Latinos, the police murder of our children, the criminalization of a generation, discrimination, widespread torture in prisons and treating those formerly incarcerated as less than full human beings. SMIN was initiated in 2011 by Dr. Cornel West and Carl Dix.

SMIN is determined to bring forth a movement of millions of people, from all walks of life, in steadfast resistance to the New Jim Crow and we will not stop until mass incarceration and the police murder of Black, Latino and other oppressed peoples stops. We refuse to accept the non-indictments in the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and many, many others across the U.S.

These police murders and the non-indictments are declarations that police can wantonly kill Black and Brown people and that Black and Brown lives do not matter. No More! This Must Stop Now! Everybody striving for these same objectives should join SMIN. Organizations should affiliate as this is a national network – it’s wide open for every person and every organization’s involvement and contribution.

Carl Dix is a co-founder, with Dr. Cornel West, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and has spent his life opposing injustice. He is a representative of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.