Last Saturday, in Oakland City Hall's amphitheater, in the Frank Ogawa Plaza, approximately 1,500 protesters rallied for about three hours to protest Alameda County's plan to build a new juvenile hall facility.

There were breakdancers, singers, speakers, a band, and various nonprofit agencies handing out their literature and information. And there was Food not Bombs, a local agency that has been much in the news in San Francisco for giving food to the homeless. They handed out food to anyone who wanted it. In Oakland, however, there were not the type of takers as there are in San Francisco.

A UC Berkeley professor and local activist, Ruth Gilmore, spoke in opposition to the county's plan and in opposition to the prison industrial complex that was initiated by former Governor Pete Wilson.

One faction of the local Muslim community was there, Minister Keith. He and his bodyguards moved through the crowd with conspicuous frankness, as the various factions of our local Muslims tend to do.

On the other end of the mall/plaza, a line of job seekers formed to file applications to become Oakland firemen and firewomen. In all, the rally went off in an uneventful way, and the Oakland police department was nowhere in sight. []