Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Baltimore Activist Alert - February 17 - 18, 2016

34] Peoples Power Assembly meeting – Feb. 17
35] Current Palestinian Revolt – Feb. 18
36] Neighborhood Solidarity – Feb. 18
37] Fair Food Fundraiser – Feb. 18
38] Film on gentrification – Feb. 18
39] Lobby Like Pro – Feb. 18
40] Peace group meeting – Feb. 18
41] Stop Dominion – Feb. 18
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34] – Join the Peoples Power Assembly on Wed., Feb. 17 from 7  to 8:30 PM for its bi-monthly organizing meeting at the Harriet Tubman Solidarity Center, 2011 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218.  Discuss important next steps in the campaign to win justice for public housing residents, upcoming protests around Freddie Gray and the anniversary of the death of Trayvon Martin and much more. The Peoples Power Assembly would like to send a huge thank you to all who helped make the “Peoples Snow Brigades” and the food distributions to people who were in desperate need during the historic “Jonas” snow storm a success. Bags of food went to Gilmor Homes, Latrobe housing project, Cherry Hill, north east Baltimore and the neighborhood around the Harriet Tubman Solidarity Center. Prior to the food drive, brigades were able to shovel out disabled residents in Latrobe, residents in Gilmor Homes and the Men’s & Family Center in east Baltimore. Thank you to the members of the PPA, students from Johns Hopkins University and the School of Hygiene and Maryland Art Institute who lent their time to phone bank hundreds of people living in public housing and for everyone’s efforts in participating in the actual digging out. Thank you to those who responded by sending financial donations and dropping off food, without your help there would have been no food deliveries.

Here is a link to an excellent article “City Struggles with Post-Storm Emergency Needs Months After April Failure” -- http://www.onbckgrnd.com/?p=915 written by Roberto Alejandro. Call 443-221-3775 or go to www.PeoplesPowerAssemblies.org.

35] – Understanding the Current Palestinian Revolt: Its Context and Consequences for Palestinian Society will be heard at 2425 Virginia Ave. NW, WDC, on Thurs., Feb. 18 from 12:30 to 2 PM. The panel presentations with policy analyst Phyllis Bennis and journalist Rania Khalek will examine this volatile situation in the context of Palestinian society on the ground and the larger frame of U.S. and international policies. Panelists will analyze history, recent events, and the growing shift to the right by Israel’s government and society. They will also consider U.S. and global responses. A light lunch will be served at 12:30 PM. RSVP at http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/EventDetails/i/57471.

36] – There is a DC Neighborhood Solidarity Network Open House at the MLK Library, Room A-5, 901 G St. NW, WDC, on Thurs., Feb. 18 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. From Chinatown to Congress Heights to Mt Pleasant, tenants and their neighbors are rising up against underhanded landlords and city policies that threaten to drive them out of their homes and neighborhoods. Find out how you can join them and plug into grassroots efforts to resist displacement around the city. The city gives away public land to build high rises and developers use dirty tricks to drive mostly Black, Latino, and Asian residents from their homes. Act NOW to defend the right to safe, affordable housing for ourselves and our neighbors. At the Neighborhood Solidarity Network Open House, you will get connected with different tenant-led efforts to resist displacement from their buildings, fight for safe living conditions, and achieve fair affordable housing policies and practices. https://www.facebook.com/events/870032263113346/.

37] – The DC Fair Food Fundraiser is happening at Haydees Restaurant, 3102 Mt. Pleasant St., NW, WDC, on Thurs., Feb. 18 at 7 PM with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and other allies.  It is a night of fun and fundraising with RAFFLES, LIVE MUSIC, DANCING & KARAOKE! Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/820161631429523/.

38] – Come to The Potter's House, 1658 Columbia Rd. NW, WDC, on Thurs., Feb. 18 at 7 PM to see “Tearing Down Oakhurst,” a program about gentrification in an Atlanta, Ga., suburb. Drawn from oral history interviews done between 2011 and 2014 in Decatur, the video presents the stories of longtime neighborhood residents responding to gentrification pressures. Many have lived in Oakhurst for more than 40 years. Over the past decade, they have resisted displacement as their neighbors have moved away or died. Each day, familiar landscapes are remade as small old homes are demolished to make way for larger, more expensive ones. 

This story familiar in Washington and cities around the world. Many Washington neighborhoods have undergone gentrification since at least the 1920s. Gentrification has become a part of the city’s urban DNA. Over the past century, Washingtonians have responded to gentrification in ways that include neighborhood organization and mobilization efforts that have yielded tangible results in District government. Those forces and results are absent in Decatur. 

The Tearing Down Oakhurst program is a three-part conversation. The first part involves an introduction to Decatur, its Oakhurst neighborhoods, and an overview of what gentrification means; the second part is a viewing of Tearing Down Oakhurst: An Oral History of Gentrification; and, in the final part, people can ask questions about the video and participate in a discussion about how neighborhood do (and can) respond to gentrification.

David Rotenstein is a Silver Spring-based historian. In 2011, he and his wife moved to Decatur’s Oakhurst neighborhood. That experience is the subject of several articles and it laid the foundation for the book he is completing on gentrification and history in Decatur. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1066674230018144/.

39] – Lobby Like a Pro 2016 continues on Thurs., Feb. 18, Mar. 3, 17 and 31, and then ending on Apr. 14.  These classes will be in the form of a webinar by phone. Do you feel that the legislative session is a mysterious process in which you have little meaningful access? Have you come to town for a rally or a lobby day, but left feeling you would like to do more you just don’t know how? Then “Lobby Like a Pro” is for you!

This course will give you a deeper understanding of how the session works, and how to influence legislation through the process. The training will cover every aspect of how a bill becomes a law, demystifying the process and giving you the tools and confidence to really make a difference. The course is free and open to anyone whether you have never been to Annapolis before or have done some lobbying work but want to know more. Participants who are not a member of Common Cause Maryland are encouraged to make a donation to support our work. The course will include seven trainings. Notes will be sent out after each training, so if you miss one do not despair! The classes will start at 7:15 PM for questions and discussion, and the training will begin at 7:30 PM and last until 8:45 PM.  Register at http://act-md.commoncause.org/site/Calendar/1862034735.

40] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore now meets on Thursdays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence.  There will be a meeting on Thurs., Feb. 18 at 7:30 PM.  The agenda will include Freddie Gray & local organizing, killer drones and Obama, an action at the State of the Union, the refugees, lobbying Rep. Sarbanes, Bernie’s phone, refugees and the unending wars. Call 410-323-1607 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net.

41] –   On Thurs., Feb. 18 at 7:30 PM come to Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201, catch Resisting LNG Exports, a Presentation by SEED with We are Cove Point, Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community, Beyond Extreme Energy and more. Dominion Resources is constructing a dangerous liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Southern Maryland. This LNG terminal would export to India and Japan natural gas that is produced by fracking in the Marcellus Shale and transported by several pipelines that are being resisted across the mid-Atlantic. Along with worsening the major health risks to communities and environmental destruction caused by the fracking industry, Dominion Cove Point poses a catastrophic health and safety threat to the rural community living on and around the beautiful Cove Point peninsula on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The fight to stop this project is on! 

SEED (Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction) is a direct-action-based group from the mid-Atlantic created to work against energy projects that are harming residents in the region. This includes mountaintop removal, coal exports, fracking, compressor stations, gas pipelines and the under-construction Dominion Cove Point LNG export terminal. Since its inception in 2014, SEED has been working with other groups and community members in Lusby, Maryland where Cove Point meets the Bay, to help protect the welfare of Calvert County residents impacted by this terminal and to do what it can to make sure the project is never completed. Visit seedcoalition.wordpress.com. Call 443-602-7585.  Go to http://www.redemmas.org.

To be continued.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.


"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs 

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