
In San Francisco this year, we’re blessed with great candidates for mayor: Jeff Adachi, John Avalos and Terry Baum. If we unite behind them in this city that endows the mayor with an amazing amount of power, we’ll make San Francisco the land of opportunity that lives up to its reputation. And if we VOTE 100% like we used to, Black San Franciscans can once again be a force to be reckoned with. We can even elect leaders who love us!

I am running for mayor of San Francisco because I believe that we, the people, can bring change to City Hall and make the government work for the people and by the people, as the Constitution guarantees. I believe that I have a clear understanding of the challenges our city faces, and the administrative experience necessary to meet those challenges.

Minutes after the outrageous police killing of 19-year-old Kenneth Harding a stone’s throw from my home and office, I joined the crowd and for two hours listened to the witnesses, shared the anger and echoed the calls for unity. Let us demand the right to “own and operate and control the economy of our community,” as Brother Malcolm advised. Now – right now – is the time for us to prove that it’s not the police, it’s not the prison guards or the big developers who have the power to impoverish and enslave us and drive us off our land. The ultimate power belongs to the people, and we will use it.

Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation’s lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern D.C. with one of the highest unemployment rates anywhere in America.

Support for the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike is strong and expanding as people inside and outside prison all over the world are connecting the Pelican Bay hunger strike to local struggles against powerlessness and inequality.

The fight by the people of San Francisco to hold the San Francisco Department of Public Health and mega-developer Lennar accountable for clean air and the health of Hunters Point residents endured another round Thursday, June 23, at City Hall. The verdict? Jury still out.

Labeled a crime fighting tool, gang injunctions are ineffective, counter-productive and further strain the relationship between residents and police. Pack the courtroom Friday, May 6, 2 p.m., 1225 Fallon, Dept. 20, Oakland, for a hearing on the Fruitvale gang injunction.

The so-called Greenest City in the Country has withered on the vine ever since a much-criticized decision to ban certain trade unions from working on municipal solar projects led to what is believed to be the nation’s first community protest and work stoppage at a solar installation and a nine-month delay in breaking ground on new solar projects.

Crying “Have a Heart, Save Our Homes,” a large Bay Area coalition marched in a driving rain from City Hall to the San Francisco Federal Building – Causa Justa/Just Cause, San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE and many more.

A crowd of over 200 community advocates, elected officials, labor leaders, community contractors and City department heads came together on Feb. 23 to celebrate the passage of the historic local hiring ordinance.

The Black population in San Francisco drastically declined when urban renewal, Redevelopment and the gentrification of the Fillmore/Western Addition started in the ‘60s, bulldozed the hearts of African Americans, many forced to move out of the City.

I am back with you fighting for our jobs at a time when I should have been preparing to choose many of you to work with me to build the new Bayview Library. The contract to build our library in our neighborhood was taken from my company, Liberty Builders, and awarded instead to a white contractor, K C K Builders, whose bid included no Blacks at all. This time we won’t let the gate swing shut again for another dozen years. We’re all fighting back – and we’re winning, especially with the passage of Supervisor John Avalos’ Mandatory Local Hire ordinance.

Addressing those fretting about civil unrest, Michael Walker concluded the press conference by declaring: “For anybody out there who feels like people are against peace, if you really want peace in this city, then fight for justice, and I guarantee you’ll have peace.”

Nyese Joshua, longtime resident of Bayview Hunters Point, reports back from the Bayview Hunters Point District 10 Supervisorial Community Candidates Forum on April 29, 2010.

In 2006, using this poster, Bayview Hunters Point activists gathered over 33,000 signatures in 90 days on our refendum petition. But City Hall tossed it. Now that the California Supreme Court has reinstated a similar Pleasanton referendum petition, can BVHP find lawyers to take ours back to court … and win back our community?

On Wednesday, Oct. 31, a coalition of Black and Brown groups and individuals gathered at City Hall to express their opposition to San Francisco’s gang injunctions. Several themes emerged from those who addressed the crowd, including gentrification, racial profiling and the misuse of city money. During the course of the rally, it became clear that City Attorney Dennis Herrera, the political force behind the injunctions, has become an extremely unpopular figure in Bayview Hunters Point, the Mission and the Western Addition – neighborhoods in which the gang injunctions are now in place.

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting, the 253 seats of City Hall’s main chamber were not enough – so many people attended that people had to sit in separate rooms on the first floor and watch the proceedings on television screens. And throughout the meeting, people stood outside the main chamber’s doors, waiting their turns to speak to the Board.