Critical Resistance Oakland

We wanted share some exciting updates from the Oakland chapter of Critical Resistance (CR) and to ask for your continued support in our ongoing efforts. This year, we have been deeply involved in the "Close California Prisons" campaign, a coalition effort with Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB). Our collective goal is to close 10 prisons by 2025, and we are making significant progress. As of now, four prisons have been closed or named for closure, and the Legislative Analyst Office is recommending that a total of nine prisons could be closed in the next few years. This is a tremendous growth from their 2020 recommendation of five prisons.

Our work, however, is not just about closing prisons. It's about building a society that values life-affirming services and resources over punitive measures. We are at the forefront of the fight for abolition in the Bay Area, working tirelessly to dismantle the prison-industrial complex and build systems that truly serve our communities. We have been organizing local Bay area engagement through outreach at outside events and teach-ins for movement partners and community.

Your support is crucial to sustaining these efforts. Your contributions help us continue our work on the ground, providing resources to those in prison, and engaging the public about the importance of prison closure and the broader fight for abolition. We are grateful for your past support and ask that you consider making a donation to help us continue this important work. Will you contribute to CR Oakland this December to keep our work going strong in the new year?

To donate to CR Oakland, go here - bit.ly/CR2023yearend, and you can click “Apply My Donation To - Oakland”. We also invite you to become a monthly sustainer. Thank you for your continued support of our work, and we hope to see you at an upcoming mobilization or mail night!

Grassroots Fundraising Win!

Last month we put out the call to support CR Oakland's campaigns and projects through grassroots donations. You showed us the value of our organizing and the power of grassroots fundraising, helping us raise over $6,500 for the Oakland chapter - with donations ranging from $10 to $2,500! Your resources and support are essential to making prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition common sense and sustaining PIC abolition in action through CR's campaigns, projects, political education, and movement partnerships.

THANK YOU!

While the work for Freedom continues into the new year, let us take a moment to reflect on what we were able to accomplish together in 2021. From December 2020 to December 2021, we hosted the Freedom Fridays series at 4400 Telegraph in North Oakland.

Freedom Fridays came to life out of political commitments and questions of necessity:
• How might we encourage abolitionist efforts through our new North Oakland home-base? What does it mean to be a good neighbor?
• How might we safely work around the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic to inspire people into action?
• And how might we center and strengthen prisoner solidarity through this all?

While the pandemic threatened to fray our connections, we knew it was necessary to keep organizing for abolition, act in solidarity with people in cages and to stay present in the neighborhood. With the people power of over 25 movement partners, local artists and educators, hundreds of neighbors, and comrades on the inside, we successfully built a community space that hosted 12 Freedom Fridays! Thanks to our collective efforts, we engaged upwards of 1,000 community members over 12 months.

Through each Freedom Friday, we supported concrete steps to advance campaigns, build and distribute mutual aid, engage with art, and share political education.

Thank you for building with us. For imagining and actualizing abolitionist movements that center joy, unity, art, and love… Without YOU none of this would have been possible.

For a full year, we activated 4400 Telegraph into a community organizing site where we took collective action, shared political knowledge, and increased connection against the odds. The road to Freedom for all of these efforts is long, but we find hope and strength in reflecting on these humble milestones. Thank you to everyone who continues to work on these campaigns and we give deep respect to the organizations carrying the work forward into 2022.

Big Love To:
Resident DJ’s
Mutual aid co-conspirators

Photographers
Glenn Mercado
Lara Aburamadan
Nick DeRenzi .derenzi
Steven Flynn

Muralists

Chapter Updates!

California Prison Closure: The Los Angeles and Oakland chapters of Critical Resistance have teamed up and joined the Close California Prisons campaign to organize for prison closure in the state. With the CURB coalition of organizations, we are building a base of support for prison closure in California, targeting decision-makers, and amplifying strategic media. CR Oakland is plugged in to the Outreach, Media, Legislative and Prisoner Solidarity efforts across this campaign.

More updates on our chapter organizing can be found here: bit.ly/CRyearend2021

CR is in the midst of our 2021 year-end fundraising season. Donate to the Oakland chapter today to sustain our organizing against the PIC and toward community care! Donate HERE and click "Oakland" in the Designation":

I just donated to Critical Resistance. Do the same! This is a great cause! Join me in my efforts to support them. Donate Now!

CR Oakland has done so much this year, and it's all because of your help! From joining the DefundOPD coalition to reallocate resources from policing to life-affirming community services, to joining our partners in Californians United for a Responsible Budget to close California prisons, and more -- all of this is possible because of your contributions. Will you make a donation today and sustain CR Oakland in Summer 2021 and beyond? Go to bit.ly/DONATIONCR and choose "Oakland" as the Designation.

Abolition is essential to our liberation, and CR invites you to share in the commitment to abolition by donating to our Summer 2021 fundraiser! Together we have increased opposition to ICE policing, detention and deportation in New Jersey and New York; advanced the campaign to Defund Police in Oakland, California; helped build and sharpen the call to close prisons in California; corresponded with over 17,000 imprisoned people and shared thousands of political education resources, including 2 issues of The Abolitionist newspaper; and more…

With your support, CR will continue this work well into the future. More about how to sustain our work can be found here.

Critical Resistance - New York City, Critical Resistance Portland, Critical Resistance , Critical Resistance Los Angeles

Please support the family of Mario Gonzalez through this GoFundMe. The Gonzalez family is also holding a press conference and action TOMORROW (Tuesday) at noon at Alameda Police Dept (1555 Oak St., Alameda) with CURYJ and Transform Alameda with CURYJ / Transform Alameda.

Justice for Mario & Gonzalez family, organized by Gerardo Gonzalez On the morning of April 19th, Alameda Police killed our beloved Mario. Mario wa… Gerardo Gonzalez needs your support for Justice for Mario & Gonzalez family

Feb 27 - Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic

What: Please join us on Saturday, February 27 at 5pm PST / 8pm EST on Zoom for a conversation around artists working toward abolition, focusing on choreographic work authored inside Norco State Prison during the pandemic, with choreographer/project curator Suchi Branfman, including publisher Vivian Sming, filmmaker Tom Tsai, and Alexander Ludington (Critical Resistance). Co-hosted by Critical Resistance and Sming Sming Books.

When: Saturday, February 27 at 5pm PST / 8pm EST

How: Register here

Undanced Dances Through Prison Walls During a Pandemic, w/ SmingSming Books A virtual event with artists and organizers, featuring contributors to the “Undanced Dances” book and a screening of the work in action.