Economic activity at the Port of Oakland came to a halt on Friday as thousands of workers and supporters gathered on Middle Harbor Road to protest police brutality and racism in the United States.
The demonstration, organized by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, coincided with demonstrations planned today at 28 other seaports in California, Oregon and Washington.
The day of action was held on Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. Local 10, Local 34 and the African American Longshore Coalition led the rally, and demonstrators plan to drive in a caravan to Oakland Police Department headquarters and City Hall from the port.
With support of the ports, workers stopped processing cargo Friday and rallied to mark the anniversary and calls for police reform. The move follows mass protests on June 9 at all 29 ports which idled terminal operations for 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time a police officer in Minnesota knelt on George Floyd’s neck— an African American man — leaving him gasping for air before he died, on May 25.
"You represent the potential and the power of the labor movement," Angela Davis, a longtime activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party, said at the rally. She said she hopes that other labor unions will join in the effort of "abolishing the police as we know them" and "re-imagining public safety."
Other speakers included actor Danny Glover, who called in to voice support, and Michael Brown Sr., the father of Michael Brown Jr., the 18-year-old black man who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.
"We're not working today. We're standing in solidarity," said Willie Adams, president of the ILWU, at the Port of Oakland. He said dock workers in Genoa, Italy had stopped work in solidarity. "Good cops have got to start checking those bad cops. You can't stand by and let something happen. You're just as guilty," Adams said.
Cestra Butner, the board president for the Port of Oakland, and a prominent African American business leader, said there’s no question that the port stood behind the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We want this country to live up to what it’s supposed to be,” he said in a Friday video addressed to employees and the public.
On June 6, the port issued a statement supporting the movement for social and racial justice. Butner called for more. “I’m proud the Port has a statement on this issue,” he said in the video. “Now we have to follow that up with our actions. We must ask: are we making everything equal?”
Shwanika Narayan and Roland Li are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com, roland.li@sfchornicle.com Twitter: @shwanika
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Port of Oakland shut down by dockworkers in observation of Juneteenth - San Francisco Chronicle
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