Despite the omicron surge, Oakland’s annual Day of Action to Reclaim MLK’s Radical Legacy will be held on Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a car caravan and drive-thru giveaway, according to the Anti Police-Terror Project, which is sponsoring the event.
It gets underway at 11 a.m. at 2777 Middle Harbor Road near Middle Harbor Shoreline Park where people can hear speakers on the radio followed by a car caravan at 12:30 p.m.
The caravan ends with a mutual aid giveaway by the Community Ready Corps, which helps people build self-determination, and Mental Health First, a non-police response to people facing a mental health crisis.
The event will be streamed live on the Anti Police-Terror Project’s Facebook page.
It’s the eighth year for the event, which promotes the radicalness of Martin Luther King Jr., compared with a more passive person that many people today consider him to be.
“King was a revolutionary,” said Cat Brooks, co-founder of the APTP and executive director of the Justice Teams Network, which aims to end state violence.
This year, attendees will mourn the lives lost to violence in the streets and those at the hands of police in the Bay Area.
Attendees will demand “an all-out war on poverty” and for healing to bring an end to violence, rather than more police.
Brooks said poverty is the root cause of the violence we see.
“Poverty causes trauma,” Brooks said. “And traumatized, wounded people hurt people.”
The Anti Police-Terror Project has been vocal about addressing the root causes of violence such as poverty and trauma, and steering Oakland tax dollars away from police to do so.
Monday’s event brings together people of different races, classes, and political ideologies to improve the city of Oakland.
Speakers include Brooks, Uncle Bobby, Oscar Grant’s uncle, and Brenda Grisham, the founder of the Christopher LaVell Jones Foundation. Grisham’s 17-year-old son Christopher LaVell Jones was shot and killed outside their East Oakland home in 2010.