Left in the Bay

14 years ago, September 17 2011, over 200 protesters set up camp outside the Bank of America building in San Francisco's Financial District in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Occupy FDSF (soon renamed Occupy SF) was followed by camps in San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley, and beyond

57 years ago, September 13 1968, a black powder bomb ripped through the Naval ROTC office on the UC Berkeley campus. This was just one of several attacks on the building that same year. Radical newspaper the Berkeley Barb responded with the headline "Berkeley Bombs Can Do Better"

51 years ago, September 11 1974, the Weather Underground bombed the Oakland office of the Anaconda mining company in retaliation for their "decisive role in the US-sponsored fascist coup in Chile" which occurred one year prior, shortly after the socialist Allende government nationalized copper mines

HOs UP PIMPS DOWN!

In 2013, the club closed its doors. Lusty Lady dancers, sex workers, and supporters held a theatrical funeral procession, parading through North Beach to celebrate their decades of work and struggle

With vastly improved working conditions, one workers said she felt that she "had died and gone to hooker heaven." In 2003, the club was turned into worker owned cooperative, and became known as the “World’s Only Unionized Worker Owned Peep Show Co-Op”

28 years ago, August 29 1997, after over a year of organizing, workers at The Lusty Lady in San Francisco officially unionized under the sponsorship of the Exotic Dancers Alliance and Service Employees International Union, becoming one of the only union strip clubs in the US

YouTube video by Reelblack One George Jackson Funeral (1971) | Silent Newsreel Footage

You can see footage from the funeral here:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=eYpn...

The Weather Underground coordinated bombings on three California Department of Corrections facilities on the day of Jackson's funeral, doing about $100,000 in damage in Sacramento, San Mateo, and San Francisco. In a communique, they quoted Jackson's call for "war without terms"

At the funeral, statements from organizers and incarcerated people from across the country were read by Bobby Seale, who remarked: "Love for the people is the love that is often paid for with life itself. Every soldier for the people knows this is what revolution is all about"

Jackson founded the San Quentin Branch while serving an indeterminate 1-year-to-life sentence for stealing $70 in 1961, during which he published his highly influential bestseller Soledad Brother, a foundational text in the prison abolition movement

54 years ago, August 28 1971, over 2,000 people attended the funeral of George Jackson, slain leader of the Black Panther Party's San Quentin Branch, at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Oakland. Jackson was killed 7 days prior by prison guards during an alleged escape attempt

Although the police claimed Denovo had been shot while charging them with her machete, autopsy reports showed that she had been shot in the back. Her death set off several days of rioting around People's Park, during which at least one police officer was beaten with a trashcan

The 19-year-old anarchist had become active in the fight to protect People's Park from development by the University. At the time of her death, she was awaiting trial on an explosives charge stemming from 1991 riots against the effort to construct volleyball courts in the park

33 years ago, August 25 1992, anarchist People's Park activist Rosebud Denovo was shot to death by police in the home of UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-lin Tien. She had broken into the house with a machete and a note reading "We are willing to die for this piece of land. Are you?"

Due to the work of his wife, Federika Newton, and the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, a bust of Huey was placed in the location where he was killed, and a portion of 9th Street was commemoratively named Dr. Huey P. Newton Way

His funeral was held six days later on August 28 at the Allen Temple Baptist Church with a crowd of over 2,000 people gathered within and outside of the church. His ashes are interred at Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery

36 years ago, August 22 1989, Huey Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, was murdered in the Lower Bottoms neighborhood of West Oakland. Tyrone Robinson of the Black Guerilla Family was arrested and charged with his murder

After the indictment Jackson was sent back to San Quentin. Just a year after his brother’s death, he was killed there by prison guards. He spent many of his last days trapped in solitary confinement working on his second book, Blood in My Eye, which was published posthumously a year after his murder

On August 7, 1970, George Jackson’s little brother, Jonathan Jackson, stormed the Marin County courthouse taking the judge and others hostage in an attempt to negotiate for the freedom of the Soledad Brothers. Before any hostage negotiations took place, he was killed by police

The Soledad Brothers Defense Committee (SBDC) was formed in the wake of their indictment by Fay Stender. The Soledad Brothers became a cause célèbre for the left. That year, Stender also arranged for the publication of Jackson’s book, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

Three days later Miller was cleared by a Grand Jury. That same day, corrections officer John Vincent Mills,was killed by prisoners in Soledad. George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Cluchette were accused and charged with his murder. They became known as the Soledad Brothers

In 1969 both Jackson and Nolen were transferred from San Quentin to Soledad prison. On January 13, 1970, corrections officer Opie Miller shot down into the yard from a guard tower, targeting and killing Nolen and two other black prisoners, Cleveland Edwards and Alvin Miller

There he was introduced to Marxist political thought and Black Power politics by prison radicals like James Carr and W. L. Nolen. Jackson later wrote in one of his letters that “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Maowhen I entered prison and they redeemed me.”

Jackson was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence, one year to life, for the robbery of $71 from a Standard Oil service station in Los Angeles in 1960, when he was just 18 years old. The following year he was sent to San Quentin

54 years ago, August 21 1971, incarcerated revolutionary, theorist, and Black Panther Party leader George Jackson was shot to death in San Quentin State Prison during an alleged escape attempt. The following week, thousands attended his funeral in Oakland

Speakers at the rally included Los Siete attorney Charles Gerry and Penny Jackson, sister of George and Jonathan, who gave a speech about the revolutionary courage of her brother who was murdered by police earlier that month

A press conference held after the rally was led by organizer Gary Perez, who called for militants to "take what we learn [at these rallies]" and "move the revolution on to higher levels." "Lines of demarcation are being drawn. You must decide if you are scholars or soldiers”

A group of militants marched down Market Street and headed to the Hall of Justice, facing arrests and attacks by the police along the route. Eight people were arrested, some of them dragged directly into the police station and charged with carrying concealed weapons (flag poles)

55 years ago, August 19 1970, over a thousand people protested at San Francisco's Civic Center plaza in support of the Soledad Brothers, Los Siete de la Raza, and Angela Davis, demanding freedom for all political prisoners and calming for an armed revolution in the United States