A Day of Rage and Action At UC Berkeley


Mifflin W. Gibbs

 

March 8, 2001
UC Berkeley,CA

They started at about 10 AM. It had been planned and coordinated for some time. The organizers had gone to the local, liberal unified districts and solicited their participation.
The SF Unified, the Berkeley and Oakland Unified School Districts were all represented at this Day of Action at UC Berkeley. The aim of this Day of Action was to force the UC system, by force of numbers that was banned at the UC system some years ago.
The estimated turnout varied depending on the sources who gave the estimates. The crowd appeared to range from 4--6,000 people. And, of course, the police were all everywhere. Telegraph and Bancroft streets, adjacent to the campus
  were blocked off to individuals and traffic. Two to three helicopters hovered atop the actual scene, People's Park, and at Shattuck streets.
In the midst of this restore the affirmative action rally, there were the ban affirmative action groups, and they drew arguments. The police were there to insure that only arguments occurred. And on campus, there was nothing more than that.

The keep affirmative action banned groups were partially integrated--two Asians signed and argued for merit entrance; one Black female argued for it; and, of course, the major participants in the keep-it-banned group were White males.

The largest group of high school students was from SFUSD. They had the majority of youthful speakers. One young high schooler from SFUSD stated that the Berkeley Chief of Police had called the SFUSD and asked the District to keep their students away from Berkeley because there would probably be violence. She called out: "Do you see any violence here?"


Zapatista Rebels had representatives there. Two masked speakers who were UC Berkeley students stated that they wanted to join in solidarity with all oppressed peoples. They wore their masks not to hide their faces, they said, but as

"a symbol of their struggle and their solidarity with all peoples who are fighting for their rights."

The Zapatistas have become quite adept in the art of populism, even Mexico's President, Vicente Fox, congratulated them on their ability to popularize their plight. Their presence at the Day of Action at Berkeley was some hint of that ability.

The rally ended with a march onto University Avenue and Shattuck, where, it is reported, some looting of stores took place.[]