The trip started well. I met Alexi on
the train. She had an old MEND YOUR FUELISH WAYS on her bike. In fact
it was so old she needed another one. As you can see, she got it. She
showed me the other one, it was banged almost beyond recognition.
The Re-volt ad was put up by a solar
panel company. All you have to do to participate in that revolution is
get solar panels on your home or business!
The rapper did a good job of making the
concern about climate change real. I was feeling hot by the time he was
done.
The woman with the feminist tattoo had
written the article about the Boston Cops in the paper she was handing
out. She showed it to me later.
I saw lots of Aung San Suu Kyi fans at
the event.
I hadn't realized that oil had
something to do with the Burma situation...
There were lots of tables with
literature and sign up sheets. Earth First did the best job of bringing
schwag.
The Laotian guy said he had lived near
Chevron's Richmond refinery for twenty years, and he knows a lot of
people that live in the area with life shortening cancers. Some of them
are children who will never be adults.
Kiwi also got people going with
hip-hop. He is an LA
based artist. About this time I realized that the sound system was
solar powered.
These guys had a Latino rock sound.
They were the only 100% live band I saw there. The others were all
backed by recordings.
Henry was the last speaker. He got
everybody fired up, promising to keep marching with us until they shut
down the refinery. He is just not going to take "NO!" for an answer.
The women on the truck were leading us
in chants. They would yell "What do we want?" We would yell "JUSTICE!"
They would yell "When do we want it?" We would yell "NOW!" It was fun
to just keep it going. The weather wasn't hot enough to be draining.
The guy in black gave me a sticker just
like those patches (except smaller) If you want it let me know how to
get it to you.
Brian (the guy with the sunflower) is the only guy that was in the
Sacramento Greens back in '91-'92 that I still run into occasionally.
The previous time I'd seen him, he was tabling for EarthJustice at the
green festival in San Francisco. I still have Justice On Earth, the
book he sold me.
Back in the '94ish time frame Bernice
invited me to an Environmental Justice Summit at a University somewhere
in Southern California. I vividly remember the start of that meeting.
One by one, people would introduce themselves and say a few words about
why they were there. Some from the central valley lived near toxic
landfills that were causing cancers. Some from industrial areas were
near factories that were causing cancers. Henry was there as a Doctor
that was having to treat lots of patients with cancers caused by the
Oil Refinery in Richmond. The character of the people was "my child
died of cancer, and I'm not going to rest until something changes."
Bradley (the guy in the red shirt) seemed like one of the main
organizers of that event. At the time he was Southwest Toxics
Coordinator for GreenPeace. I went home from that weekend deeply
disturbed. It was good to see that he is still in the struggle.
On the other side of the car was "MAKE
ART NOT WAR" in big letters.
When we got near the refinery gate
there was a police line. The *Official Policy*(TM) was "no bicycles
beyond this
point." Since I'd brought my bike that was as far as I got. I just
didn't want to abandon it in a strange town, miles from BART.
I took pictures of the things that
caught my eye. I'd brought my bike because I'd heard there was going to
be a critical mass ride at the end of the march, but that didn't seem
to be developing.
The Fossil Fool kicked out a few
rhymes, but the crowd was melting away fast. Maybe they were all
getting involved with the nonviolent civil disobedience we couldn't get
our bikes near. His bike is truly a special case, being a mobile sound
system complete with microphone, pedal generator, and backup tracks for
his tunes. It was powerful enough to fill the area with very dance
inducing sound.
Anyhow, Hank and I
took off for Berkeley. The weather was perfect for riding bikes.