Day 4 of the 99 Mile March

We started out from Vacaville early this morning. People were in good spirits but were dealing with more serious soreness and blisters on this fourth day of the march. A couple of people decided to take off their shoes and walk only in socks to avoid aggravating their blisters as much as possible. Initially we passed through residential neighborhoods and commercial areas, but soon we were in the countryside.

Generally today we traveled through farmland, zigzagging first east and then north and then east again along Route 80. We made good time throughout the day, though we spent a fair amount of time for lunch resting and talking with a group of people who had driven up from the Bay Area to take part in the final leg of the trip.

The day was marked by scattered heckling. At one point a woman standing in her door shouted, “I'm an American citizen; you all aren't” and waved her hand as if to shoo us away. Later a man standing in a field addressed us on a bullhorn, telling us we should get jobs. He also said we were lazy, which provoked some laughter within the group. At another point, a group of young people told us to get a job. Sometimes people in cars flipped us off as they drove by. Overwhelmingly the people we passed expressed support, but the scattered heckling gave the day a sightly colder edge.

Some of the most meaningful and fun encounters occurred as the sun was setting and we were walking along a road heading east. At one point, we saw a man walking with a child on his shoulders all the way across a field to meet the march. When he got to the road, he joined a woman holding a young child in her arms. Some of the members of our group paused and spoke to them. That encounter was reminiscent of some earlier moments, such as the time when we passed a woman holding a young girl's hand up to wave at us for the whole time the march went by. Later down the road, a marcher passed out pamphlets for the capitol occupation in Sacramento tomorrow, speaking in Spanish with people who had gathered in their driveway.

As we approached Davis, I was thinking some about how meaningful it was that the route of our march linked together two UC campuses whose occupations and assembled students had endured severe police repression last fall, and where significant student strike actions against debt and privatization had been staged.

Thinking back to the gathering on Saturday at Solano Community College, however, I also started reflecting on how this march, which was organized largely by San Francisco State students, was not primarily a UC action. I remembered how, when the group gathered on Saturday to articulate what we were marching for, many supporters and marchers talked about how -- as community college and CSU students – they were unable to complete degrees or credit requirements within a reasonable number of years because of recent severe cuts to course offerings. Some talked about working multiple jobs to pay for tuition or about facing devastated job markets upon graduation. Some also talked about the severe inequities at the K-12 level that have reverberated throughout the entire education system. This multi-day action brought students from different sectors of education together in a way I haven't experienced before. I hope the bonds forged on the march will enable us to continue to build more thoroughly cross-sectoral education movements.

As we entered UC Davis, the energy of the march grew. As we moved through the campus, we started chanting louder than we had all day. Some of the chants included “No cuts, no fees: education will be free,” “We demand (we don't ask) education for the working class,” “This movement's unstoppable; occupy the capitol,” and “We won't stop; we won't rest—education's in distress.”

People from Occupy UC Davis and other friends and supporters of marchers had set up extra tents for us on the UC Davis quad where the local Occupy movement encampment is located, so when we finally arrived, we marched into an area dotted with roughly forty pitched tents. Local Occupy members were playfully hiding in the tents when we arrived, and they emerged from the tents to an exhilarating scene of rejoicing marchers in the quad. Occupy Davis had prepared an abundance of amazing food, including homemade tamales, pasta salad, rice and beans, green salad, pecan pie, and apple pie. After dinner we met briefly to discuss plans to build a mass occupation of the capitol in Sacramento tomorrow, and then most of the group headed to bed.

We encourage anyone within commuting distance of Sacramento to join our protest for public education at the capitol tomorrow! There will be a mass march beginning at Southside Park at 6th and T Streets at 10 a.m., a rally at the capitol at 11 a.m., a general assembly and nonviolent direct action training at 3:30 p.m., and a rally on the north steps in solidarity with the “Occupy the Capitol” action at 5:30 p.m.

Day 3 of the 99 Mile March

Saturday -- the third day of the “The 99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice” -- was a relatively low-key day. We started late with the walking, which gave us some time in the morning to have our second General Assembly of the trip. At the GA we talked about decision-making and logistical issues concerning the march. We also had an extended discussion about one of the marcher's flags, which was an upside-down American flag. Ultimately the group came to consensus to ask him to tape the slogan “Education in Distress” onto the flag, because the upside-down flag is a code for distress.

We then gathered at Solano Community College and had our conversation with some students who had provided us with lunch. We went around and everyone explained why they were marching and what had inspired them to be involved. Some of the students from Solano Community College talked about how cuts to classes have turned what were four or five year plans for graduation into seven or eight year plans for education. Other people talked about the debt loads they were taking out or paying off. Others talked about marching for their younger siblings or marching for currently undocumented students. It struck me how the ground of the march was being articulated and also stretched insofar as many of the reasons why people were participating pointed toward broader social conditions and political struggles than public education narrowly understood.

For most of the day we marched on freeways or trails that cut between people's back yards or that were adjacent to the highway. Our view was often blocked by fences and sometimes people would wave or call out to us from their rear windows or porches. We ended up walking for a number of hours after dark on access roads or trails. We ultimately arrived into Vacaville, where we were offered food and a place to stay at a local church. We were also joined by a number of Occupy Vacaville activists, one of whom marched with us for the last couple of miles, carrying a set-up tent.

We've had many curious encounters with animals at different points along the way -- particularly on our third day, since we were walking on so many parks and trails. I thought it might be interesting for me to enumerate these encounters.

A Bestiary of the 99 Mile March:

* On the second day we saw a group of four wild turkeys running along the side of the road with what looked like neckties of feathers. At one point one of the turkeys lost its way and had to chase after the group up the road. When they re-converged, everyone cheered.

* After we passed by the oil refinery on the second day, we entered into a small valley where a group of sheep were grazing on an enclosed pasture. The pasture was surrounded by single-story houses and looked barren.

* On the third day, when we were having trouble finding the trail head, a jack rabbit ran out of the forest and along a fence that had a cutaway entrance to the trail head.

* As we were marching on the third day we passed a group of cows that came over to the path and licked one of the marchers on the hand. Everyone called them "Occu-cows."

* Down the greenway a little bit there was an orange cat with scruffy fur sitting on a downed panel of the fence. She ran under the fence when we approached.

* At a couple of spots along the greenway there were massive, lightly colored, quirky bird feeder/birdhouse contraptions that had wacky, iron, painted birds affixed to them.

* At night, as we were walking down an access road, off to the right there were the sounds of frogs croaking while we could hear the sounds of highway traffic to the left.

* So far today we've entered into farmland. Just as we entered we passed by a small farm with more than two dozen peacocks that were running around the farm and jumping on the roofs of farm buildings. They were being chased by a group of cats on the farm.

Right now we're about three miles away from our lunch stop on the fourth day, paused by the side of the road with highway 80 in the distance and fields stretching in all different directions. We will continue on until we reach Davis tonight.

The Send-Off

Day 2 of the 99 Mile March

We woke up really early in Richmond this morning. There were roosters crowing when the sun came up. People were waiting around for a while after getting ready for the mayor of Richmond to come address us before we left. She's with the Green Party and, based on her short talk, it sounds like she and a couple of other elected representatives are engaged in an attempt (albeit largely restricted or thwarted) to undo the local power of Chevron. She gave a warm address to our group. The food arrived at the same time as she began to speak. It was donated by friends of a local organizer who also participated in a march almost ten years ago that went from Richmond to Sacramento.

After breakfast we marched out through Richmond. Today we were on divided highways with two lanes on each side for most of the time. We were just occupying the right lane, for the most part, so cars were passing us on the left. We traveled through a rail graveyard. At times the road became an elevated highway or went up a hill, revealing views of the bay past the industrial landscape. When we were on lower roads or flat areas, we were generally passing through working-class, primarily Latino communities, where warehouses often bounded residential blocks.



Throughout the day I thought some about how the march offers a slow-paced sketch of the social geography of the Bay Area. It was possible to perceive histories of social labor and structural deprivation on the buildings we passed, in the landscape, and in the atmosphere.

For most of the morning, the energy within the group was high. As we marched, periodically we tossed glitter on each other. The glitter sparkled in the sun. People were dancing to a mix of music including MIA and Whitney Houston. One of the chants went something like this:

Occupy, Occupy: student debt has got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: foreclosures have got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: the prison system has got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: homophobia has got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: fossil fuels have got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: imperialism has got to die.
Occupy, Occupy: capitalism has got to die.

And so forth...

In addition to carrying the “99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice” banner, today protesters started carrying a second banner: “Abolish Student Debt.”

The weather was beautiful—sunny and clear. As we were entering into Pinole, a train with about fifty cars—most of which were owned by Archers Daniel Midland—passed us on the right. We met a group of about ten UC Berkeley professors in a park in Pinole, in the renovated historic downtown part of the city. We all had a relaxed lunch of chili, salad, and corn cooked by Kelly Iwamoto and served by UC Berkeley professor Wendy Brown. The faculty—some of whom were wearing their robes—marched with us for the next couple of miles. One of the remarkable parts of that stage of the march was that at almost every intersection we went through, we set off a contagious series of honking and people calling out from their cars.



After the professors left, we started to approach a ConocoPhillips-owned oil refinery. As we got to the refinery, my eyes started to burn. Others said they could feel the air pollution in their throats. We also heard at that point that the cops were telling our police liaison that we needed to move really quickly past the refinery because the people who work there were getting off their shift at 4 p.m., and walking in the vicinity would be dangerous at that point. None of us understood why or how it could be dangerous.

The road cut right through the refinery—a massive compound with pipes, boilers, and other types of machinery. It was a sort of open-air factory. The administrative building inside the compound featured a sign that said “Last Lost Time Incident: [a date I neglected to record], 2010,” which made me think some about industrial injuries; the time that the company has in mind, as well as other times; and how our experience of time is reshaped following an injury, both for those who are injured and for those who are caring for the injured. As we marched past the compound, workers from the factory started driving down the road past us. Most of them waved, raised their fists, or honked their horns in solidarity (this was a fairly common response at the various locations we moved through today).

The area past the refinery was very hilly, and the cops started pressuring the police liaisons to make us move quickly over the hills. At this point the cops were escorting the march by driving in front and in back of it in cars. But when we got to the hilly area, they threatened to leave if we didn't move faster. Whenever they made this threat, some people halfheartedly endorsed the idea of slowing down to help that process along. Part of the ambivalence about the escort came because there was a real question of danger on the roads, even though we were being followed by our cargo van. Today the roads were fairly large, and the march caused significant backups of traffic. We blocked intersections for some time as we passed through, all of which happened a little more smoothly because of the police escort. When we entered Vallejo, the police neglected to position the escort car in front of the march as they had been doing before, thereby forcing the marchers to manage traffic in the intersection ourselves. Doing so was initially pretty unsettling.

After the refinery, we crossed the Carquinez Bridge, marching in the pedestrian lane. The view was stunning. The water below was ebbing. There was a streak of sun reflected in the water, and I noticed that underneath us a couple of people were working to unload a boat next to a run-down pier.



We entered Vallejo on the opposite side of the bridge as dusk fell. At this point people were really starting to feel the effects of the distance we had traveled. Our legs were aching. Blisters were starting to be more of a problem. Our feet were sore. A couple of people from Vallejo joined the march—they had heard it was coming through and decided to take part. They talked about how they've been going to Occupy Oakland a fair amount because there hasn't been much of an Occupy movement locally. They helped us with directions because we were starting to get a little bit confused about the navigation.

A woman called out from her porch that she had just seen a news report about us. In response someone came up with a new chant that went something like: “We're real, it's true—you saw us on the news." Here's a news clip from ABC 7 about the march:



Around this point, marchers and people in support roles also started to get testy with each other at times. I think that had a lot to do with the risks that we were facing on the road and how people in different roles saw and responded to those risks in different ways. Some were upset at times as what they saw as other protesters' risky behaviors—behaviors such as being close to the lane lines.

At one point we were unsure about how best to get where we were going, so we stopped at the side of the road and ultimately called everyone together for the first General Assembly of the march. People spoke on stack during the brief deliberation. We made a fairly quick decision to split the group: some who felt ready to be shuttled to the campsite departed, and the rest of the group continued marching the rest of the way. Some of those who were shuttled were transported with help from the local Vallejo couple who had joined the march (and the couple's friends).

The rest of us marched on the right side of the road in a two-by-two march, falling in line behind a giant sculpture of a No. 2 pencil. The sculpture, which was created by Berkeley High School students, has been wheeled all the way from Berkeley on shopping carts as part of the march. We did our best to stay together through the intersections when we had green lights. When we were about half a mile from the camp, the passenger van came by with some of the people who had been shuttled, and they shared boxes of pizza with us on the side of the road. We finally made it back to the camp at around 8 p.m. Tonight we're staying in tents on the lawn of the Rehoboth World Outreach Center.

Tomorrow morning we set off from Vallejo for Fairfield and Vacaville...

Day 1 of the 99 Mile March

Roughly 50 students, teachers, and community members embarked today on a multi-day journey from Oakland to Sacramento as part of the ongoing struggle against the dismantling of public education. Here are some highlights from our first day on the road:

The rain had cleared up by the time we left Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland, where we rallied for public education with a few hundred people this afternoon. We set off carrying a huge yellow banner painted with the words “The 99 Mile March for Education and Social Justice.” One young man has been marching with a boom box, playing hip hop.

Most people on the march are in their twenties, but there is also a contingent of older people, including teachers and parents. There are many SF State students involved, along with students from UC Berkeley and other schools.

While we were marching from Oakland back to Berkeley High, someone remarked that it's really exciting how unexpected, transient alliances continually take shape during the march as people respond positively to our protest as it passes.

Today some people joined the march and started chants from the side. A woman at a bus stop told us to stay safe on our way to Sacramento. Two young people walked with us for five blocks in Berkeley with their basketball. Cars honked their horns the whole time we were walking through Richmond. People often gasped when we told them we were going to “Sacto.” A group of guys in Richmond said they wanted to join the march and came along with us for a number of blocks, talking and walking with us. A group of people in their backyard in Richmond started a chant for us as we went by. A woman joined the march in Richmond and started one of those chants that goes “olé olé olé olé olé.” These unexpected, brief moments of affiliation and connection made the day feel meaningful—we are connecting to new people and talking about what we are doing.

A central experience of the day involved getting a sense of how the fifty or so marchers could move on the road together—how fast, how many lanes we could occupy, how to communicate with each other, and how to manage risks connected to the traffic flows. As we walked, we circled through different conversations with different people and overheard snatches of all different conversations. People were introducing themselves to each other and talking about history and the different social movements that they have learned about or been part of, such as anticolonial movements in the United States. There was talk about different group dynamics at the Occupy encampments—for example, what happens when some people want to kick someone out and others don't.

There is a rolling, fluid quality to this sort of movement, both in terms of the pace of the march and in terms of how people move from one place to another and introduce themselves to one another.

We marched more than twelve miles and arrived in Richmond after 8:00 p.m. at Saint Mark's United Catholic Church. Local community groups made enough burritos to feed our whole group. We are sleeping in classrooms at the church tonight.

A couple of people from Occupy Richmond came to talk with us tonight about the different kinds of work they've done. They've been very involved in support work for Occupy Oakland. Somebody affiliated with Richmond Spokes said one central issue for Occupy Richmond is the pollution that has been introduced by Chevron in this area. The atmosphere and environment in Richmond is significantly more carcinogenic than in other parts of the Bay Area. He said a study on librarians found that 30 percent of librarians in Richmond develop breast cancer, which people think is tied to the pollution introduced by Chevron.

Tomorrow, we set off from Richmond for Vallejo...