I just had to be there to show support for Climate Justice, and to see who else would show up. I figured the signs would be great, and I wasn't disappointed. Click the pictures to see more.

     

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.