July 2015

On the 28th of July, the Light Brigade deployed lighted letters at the US Supreme Court and US Capitol to remember Sandra Bland. Police in Texas arrested Sandra and held her in jail for defying an illegal order from a cop at a traffic stop to put out her cigarette-in her own car. Three days later she was found dead in her cell with a noose around her neck. Some say she was lynched, certainly hanging is the very symbol of lynching. Sandra's mother has said "this means war" at her daughter's funeral. Her family and friends say there is no way she would have killed herself.

Video-Light Brigade sings in memory of Sandra Bland

by George Joseph, Intercept
In response to The Intercept’s FOIA request, for example, last month the DHS’s Office of Operations Coordination released over 40 pages of documents (archive 1, archive 2) detailing live updates and Google Maps images of Black Lives Matter protestors’ movements during an April 29^th protest in Washington, DC.

An April 29th email from the DHS National Operations Center also mentions planned surveillance of three seemingly innocuous events, two of which were associated with historically black neighborhoods. According to the email, the DHS-funded DC Homeland Security & Emergency Management Agency decided to conduct “a limited stand-up… to monitor a larger than expected Funk Parade and two other mass gathering events” in case “any Baltimore-related civil unrest occurs.” It appears that the only Funk Parade in DC occurs in the historically black neighborhood of U Street. The other two events, according to another report, produced by the DHS National Capital Region‘s Information Collection and Coordination Center, were a community parade in Congress Heights, a predominantly black neighborhood, and the Avon 39-Walk to End Breast Cancer. Full article

On the 22nd of July, Apache Stronghold rallied in front of the US Capitol to demand passage of HR-2811, the Save Oak Flat Act. This act would reverse the late-night addition of the "SouthEast Arizona Land Exchange" to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA). Three politicians instrumental in addding this totally unrelated rider to transfer sacred Apache land to Resolution Copper LLC for a destructive copper mine to the NDAA were singled out by name and presented as devils in a banner. They are Senators John McCain(R-AZ), Sen Jeff Flake(R-AZ), and Rep Ann Kirkpatrick(D-AZ).

Update 7-22 10PM: After the rally, grandmothers and young women were threatened with immediate arrest and "escorted out" of the House office buildings after including Rep Paul Gosar in their visits to members of Congress. He hid behind a locked door and demanded Capitol Police remove all Apache people immediately.

Video-calling out McCain, singling out Kirkpatrick for betrayal(5 min 8 sec, 360x640, 36Mb)

Museum Square at 4th and K sts NW is one of the last affordable housing projects in Chinatown, containing nearly half the remaining Chinese community there plus many African-American residents. The owner of the building (Bush Properties in Va) wants to replace it with condos and luxury apartments for the rich. As part of the campaign to save the building and block the evictions, Busboys and Poets at nearby 5th and K st, held a party for Museum Square residents and supporters on July 20. The room was packed to standing room only.