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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

57 years ago, October 30 1968, a bomb exploded at the office of Oakland lawyer and civil rights activist Donald Warden. Warden, the founder of the Afro-American Association and an early influence on the Black Panther Party, blamed "white radicals," while the BPP blamed the police

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

All twenty seven men were charged with mutiny that day. After a long and arduous legal battle, they had their convictions overturned by a military appeals judge

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

One of the twenty seven, Richard Gentile, was thrown in the stockade for being just eight hours AWOL just two days before the event for violating a post-wide restriction and joining the GI & Vets March for Peace

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

On the morning of the Oct 14, twenty seven prisoners broke formation from their work details and walked to the lawn floating "V-signs," singing "This Land Is Your Land" "We Shall Overcome." One of the demonstrators, Walter Pawlowski stood up and shouted out a series of grievances

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Tensions mounted on October 11 when Richard Bunch was killed by a guard after jogging away from a shotgun work detail. The murder was quickly declared a "justifiable homicide." Agitated prisoners confronted guards that evening and rumors spread that they would burn the stockade

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Stuffed into dilapidated cellblocks, the prisoner population (mostly consisting of AWOLs) drastically rose in the summer of ‘68. Incessant abuse from guards, two hour bathroom waits, and frequent suicide attempts were a few of the grievances prisoners voiced

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

57 years ago, October 14 1968, 27 prisoners at the Presidio stockade in San Francisco took part in a sit-down demonstration to voice grievances about the horrific conditions at the military prison. The Presidio mutiny resulted in one the longest courts-martial in U.S. history

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Two years later, Santa Cruz joined Berkeley as the second American city to officially recognize Indigenous People's Day. It would be another two decades before more cities and the federal government would follow

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

The holiday began with a sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz, after which the American Indian Movement disrupted a planned reenactment of Columbus's landing. Later, hundreds gathered on Sproul Plaza where Indigenous rap group With0ut Rezervation performed

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Dozens of organizations affiliated with Resistance 500, from the liberal Green Party to the radical Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. While the campaign to recognize Indigenous People's Day was active across the Bay Area, only the government of Berkeley was receptive

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

33 years ago, October 12 1992, the country's first officially-recognized Indigenous People's Day was celebrated in Berkeley. The holiday was planned by Resistance 500, a Native-led group that formed to protest upcoming celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Oakland soon established itself as the Occupy movement's militant edge, placing a much greater weight on anti-racist, anti-police, and anti-state politics than most other camps. Many participants had been active in the 2009 anti-police movement following the murder of Oscar Grant

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Early in the afternoon, a group of Ohlone activists who had recently occupied Sogorea Te’, a sacred site in Vallejo, spoke: "This land isn't the city of Oakland's... it's not just Ohlone land anymore, it's all of our land, and we have the right to be here, to occupy this land”

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

14 years ago, October 10 2011, people inspired by the Occupy Wall St movement set up camp in Oakland's Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, which they immediately renamed Oscar Grant Plaza. The founding of Occupy Oakland was timed to coincide with Indigenous People's Day

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

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"

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

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

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Reposted by Left in the Bay

Gregory Daurer aka Gregory Ego @gregoryego.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

HOs UP PIMPS DOWN!

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

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”

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

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"

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

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"

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

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?"

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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.”

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

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”

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

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)

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

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

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

Over the last years, as Israel has horrifically escalated its genocidal war against Palestinians, Block the Boat activities ramped up again. Organizers were active at the Port of Oakland and elsewhere to attempt to prevent ships from docking and moving Israeli-bound goods and weapons

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

The Zim Integrated Shipping Services vessel was successfully turned around when ILWU Local 10 workers refused to cross picket lines formed at the port gates. The Block the Boat port protests were organized in response to the brutal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip that summer

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

11 years ago, August 16 2014, thousands of people converged at the Port of Oakland to block an Israeli-owned container ship from docking and unloading at the port as part of a wider "Block the Boat" campaign. Similar protests took place in Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver that week

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

Edlin, and the eight SLP members arrested at the rally in his support, were found guilty on charges of "obstructing the street" and "disturbing the peace." During their arrest, as the police wagon began to head off to the station, the crowd chanted "Three cheers for socialism!"

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Left in the Bay @leftinthebay.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

129 years ago, August 15 1896, eight members of the Socialist Labor Party were arrested for public speech on 7th and Market in San Francisco at a rally in support of free speech, called after another SLP member, William Edlin, was arrested and convicted for speaking on the street

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