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Pagans participate in the Bay Area #96Hours of action to #ReclaimMLK

Heather Greene By |

OAKLAND, Calif. — Over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, California’s Bay Area played backdrop to a number of different events as part of the second annual #96Hours action organized by the Anti Police-Terror Organization. Many of these events were attended by local Pagans, Polytheists and Heathens. The weekend action, consisting of everything from protests to vigils, culminated in a march through the city of Oakland.

March through Oakland and Emeryville 2016 [Courtesy R. Smith]

March through Oakland and Emeryville 2016 [Courtesy R. Smith]

T. Thorn Coyle, who had been involved with the Anti Police-Terror Organization all year, helped to coordinate the first #96Hours action in 2015. This year was no different. In an email, Coyle told The Wild Hunt, “It is important to us that we honor the radical legacy of Dr. King – as called for by Black leadership – rather than upholding the whitewashed and sanitized Dr. King that so much of white America insists on remembering. King grew more and more radical before his death, when he had close to 30% approval among white Americans. This is around the same amount of approval white Americans currently give to Black Lives Matter and anti police brutality movements. We need to rethink what we value in this country. As a Pagan, I value justice, beauty, equity, and love. I try to act towards those qualities and join in community with others who uphold them.”

As she noted, the #96Hours action is part of a larger movement to reclaim Martin Luther King Jr.’s radical legacy. The common hashtag being used is #ReclaimMLK.

The Oakland #96Hour weekend events began on Friday, Jan. 15 with 7 am meditation and, then, continued on from there. At 4 pm, Coyle participated in the “Can You See Me?” Interfaith Procession in Remembrance of Black Lives in Oakland. As she described, the service was led by a Rabbi, Imam, and two Christian ministers, with Buddhists leading meditation. Then, there was a processional of nine coffins, representing those killed locally by police in 2015. That ended at Lake Merritt, where a tenth coffin was floating to represent those people whose names were not known.

While at the lake, Coyle led the group in song and prayer, asking them “to call upon the ancestors and [their] beloved dead, naming those killed by police.” She explained that “Pagan and polytheist traditions it is important to many of us to remember and call upon our beloved dead, asking them to walk with us.” 

#96Hours Interfaith Service [Photo Credit: Mollie Costello]

#96Hours Interfaith Service [Photo Credit: Mollie Costello]

Brennos Agrocunos, Vice Chief, Coru Cathubodua Priesthood, was in attendance at the Friday evening service. He said, “We choose to stand alongside local Black Lives Matter activists as an act of service to our Gods, our ancestors, and our communities. As Coru priests committed to core values of sovereignty, kinship, warriorship, and service, one of the ways we enact these values is in the streets standing shoulder to shoulder with members of all faiths in our communities, calling for justice and an end to oppression, and providing medical and logistical support to other activists.”

Agrocunos and other members of Coru Cathubodua were also in attendance at Saturday’s action at the Oakland airport. Starting 6 p.m., terminal passengers were “greeted by activists chanting the names of People of Color killed by the police in the Bay Area, holding signs reading ‘Welcome to Oakland.’ ” This same action was then repeated on Sunday at the San Francisco airport, a much larger and busier facility.

Morpheus Ravenna, Lore Chieftain, Coru Cathubodua Priesthood said, “In the San Francisco Bay Area, nonviolent Black Lives Matter demonstrators have often been met with excessive force and violence. We find that the presence of clergy people acting in solidarity can help protect the community while underscoring the moral and spiritual imperatives of the movement.”

Oakland Airport Action [Courtesy Brennos Agrocunos ]

The events noted above were only a few of the many that were organized over the 96 hour period that culminated in a Monday march through the streets of Oakland. This final action attracted the largest Pagan, Polytheist and Heathen contingent, many of whom walked behind a large banner reading, “Pagans United for Justice.”

Kristen Oliver and Rose Quartz of the Mills College Pagan Alliance were two of those walking. Oliver said, “Rose and I went to the march to honor MLK and stand with the people who he died to raise up who are still dying in our streets. I have always been an out and proud Pagan and so was happy to join the group of Pagans marching today under the ‘Pagans United for Justice’ banner. As someone who works to raise the visibility of Pagans in the public eye I have always said I would love to see more of our community out there working for social justice. And yet I have to admit that today I felt a bit disingenuous about identifying myself as anything other than just a person who wants humanity to learn to understand each other and stop hurting each other. Dr. King’s legacy and the Black Lives Matter movement is far too important to dilute or hijack with personal agendas and yet it is so important to show that support comes from many different places. I am still grappling with this question of intention tonight.”

Marching along side the Oliver and Quartz were members of Coru Cathubodua, Solar Cross Temple, Golden Gate Kindred, Reclaiming and more. Ryan Smith of the Golden Gate Kindred posted on Facebook: “Our kindred puts our words into action!”

Pagans March [Courtesy Brennos Agrocunos]

Oakland MLK March 2016 [Courtesy Brennos Agrocunos ]

Beginning around 11am, marchers walked from “Oscar Grant Plaza,14th & Broadway, to the Bay St Mall in Emeryville” and were reportedly close to 1000 people strong.

Then, as the march neared its end, an unscheduled action took place on one side of the Bay Bridge. Around 4 pm, 25 Black Lives Matter protesters stopped a line of cars, chained themselves and the cars together, blocking the entire side of the road. Their original intent was to remain in that position for 96 minutes in honor of the #96hours of action. However, the protesters were only there for 30 minutes before being arrested. The entire event was reportedly peaceful.

The #96Hours and, more specifically, the #ReclaimMLK actions were not limited to the Bay Area, attracting attention and inspiring action throughout the country. While the national Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend is now officially over, the #ReclaimMLK movement will undoubtedly continue into the future as more groups and people, from all walks of life, join and support this growing social justice movement.

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18 thoughts on “Pagans participate in the Bay Area #96Hours of action to #ReclaimMLK”

  1. Police Terror? Were there coffins there to represent those police officers that have been killed in the line of duty and were their names mentioned?

    Were the names of innocent victims killed in our community by other civilians, mentiond? Were the names of the innocent children killed in the cross fire of civilians mentioned?

    If not, then this was a very one-sided action. As there are many officers of color who have been killed while on duty and many civilians killed by other civilians and children who were killed by cross fire. I believe their lives are just as important as anyone else’s lives.

    • The one-sidedness is embedded in the issue. Police are one-sidedly killing unarmed young men of color. If there were as many white deaths of the same nature… but there aren’t. #96Hours exists to protest and change a one-sided situation, and its words and deed justifiably reflect that core truth.

        • Really? Then where are all the dashcam and civilian-video footage of unarmed whites being gunned down?

          • For that matter, why don’t we routinely hear of unarmed white kids being shot to death by police in popular spring break resorts? They are, very often, drunk and disobedient, and committing the sorts of public petty offenses that tend to lead to police encounters and arrests requiring some use of force. Most of the same elements are in place with young white male police encounters and those involving young black men.

            The outcomes are very different based on long-held presumptions in the criminal justice system. White kids, by and large, are viewed as “good kids who made a mistake”, both during the arrest and subsequently in the court system. When they struggle or flee during the arrest, the worst they get is some bruises and a snoot full of pepper spray. Young black men in many jurisdictions don’t get the velvet glove. They get the iron fist from the start. Where lethal force is considered an absolute last resort with a white suburban kid, it’s an acceptable first resort for black men who display virtually any degree of un-cooperativeness. The circumstances of the actual threat posed by the suspect – the fact that he is unarmed and even hugely outnumbered by officers, becomes irrelevant. If he’s black, he’s an immanent threat to the officer’s safety, and it’s automatically a “clean shoot.” Once the firing starts, it isn’t about disabling the offender. They fire until their 15+ shot pistol is clicking on an empty chamber. It’s not about effecting a custodial arrest. It’s a straight-out execution in many of these cases. After the fact, the police agencies and prosecutions engage in systematic destruction or concealment of evidence, lies and silence. It is simply understood that there will be no serious accountability.

            If your white, you might feel you don’t have to care because this is not your lived reality. You ought to think long and hard about dismissing it. Even if you don’t give a rat’s hind about the plight of black America or even hate black folks outright, you take a huge risk in allowing this situation to continue. Regimes which get used to murdering their subjects with impunity never, in the long run, confine that brutality to traditionally disfavored minorities.

        • More white males will die of pretty much any cause, because there are a lot more of them in the population. White men make up about 31% of the U.S. population. Black men, about 6.5%. Absolute numbers are meaningless in this context. What matters are rates of police killings and how they are, or are not, proportionate to the race of the victims. Whites and hispanics are killed by police at the rate of around 2 per 1 million. Blacks – 5 per 1 million. That raises a high index of suspicion, unless you’re invested in the idea that America has no race problem (and much of white America is deeply invested in that belief). Beyond numbers, there are clear and disturbing disparities in the circumstances of police violence and the different “rules of engagement” police in many cities tend to use in white vs black communities.

      • any imbalance in police actions due to race is due to the fact that some 75% of all crimes are committed by one race.

        you see, if you dont give the cops a damned good reason to shoot, they generally dont. but of course any blanket statement is prone to failure. there are exceptions, and said exceptions do get prosecuted.

        the issue here is that people, particularly in liberal parts of the country, like say California, fail to recognize the continuum of force. this is in fact a direct result of the anti-gun and politically correct movements. you reap what you sow.

    • You must be joking. 55 police officers were killed in the line of duty last year. (https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2015) Police killed 1134 people in the US in the same year. Young black men were killed at five times the rate of young white men. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men) Yes, police terror is the correct term for it, and no, the police who died should not be mentioned in the same action.

      • ok, so in virtually all of those 1134 cases where the police killed someone, at least the officer and much more likely the officer and anyone in the area were under immanent deadly threat. so thats 1134 criminals killed instead of innocent people or cops.

        • What about all the videos that show a person who was no threat at all? How many of the other incidents would turn out the same if we had video? The reality is that black people are being murdered on the street by police, usually with no consequences. And many, many white Americans are eager to excuse it, rationalize it, do anything other than face the facts.

    • No cop has ever been killed with impunity. No cop killer has ever gotten off with a reprimand and paid leave.

      • if you can find proof, of any case where someone was assassinated by the police, show me.

        every case that has hit the media and raised such outrage has been a clear legitimate self defense use of force.

        furthermore, if every use of force resulted in jail time for the officer involved it would take about 3 minutes to have every cop in the country quit and then exactly who will you call when the thug comes looking for his payday?

        • if you can find proofIn the case that is currently roiling Chicago the dashcam clearly shows an unarmed black male walking AWAY when he was shot several times by the cop.cops quitA threat! What a pleasant injection into the conversation…

  2. Lailoken, I suggest you back up you claim with actual statistics. Remember we are only talking about white males who were unarmed killed by police if it is going to mean anything as far as Black people killed by police. You are right about a higher percentage of Black cops, compared to their numbers in the police forces, being killed.

    Now the interesting question, how many are dying by being killed by criminals and how many are dying by fellow police officers nation wide Black policemen and women have been complaining about systematic racism with on the police departments. Not only does this mean a Black policeman is more likely to be charged or punished, but that he has to be afraid of his fellow police when he, or his family members are not in uniform. The number of all white police forces policing all black neighborhoods are part of the problem as well.

    Our legal system is separate and unequal as well, as not only are Black boys and men more likely to be harassed by police, they are far more likely to be charged and arrested than White boys and men doing the same thing, far more likely to receive harsher sentences as well.

    This is also true of Latinos, and Native Americans and this is equally true in how children are treated out our public schools system as well, with a greater likelihood of them having the police called on them and arrested for things that police would never be called on for White kids doing the same exact things. There is nothing new about this, it has been going on for all seventy years of my life and this is endemic with how our society functions.

    Not that it matters, but my family is mostly Southern since 1645, and my family did own slaves at various times. But that doe snot stop me from being interested in real history and not the cleaned up version that is taught in our public schools. I find it curious that we do not talk of the long history of the Native American people, including their civilizations, in our country, and what our ancestors did to them, nor does it discuss how salve were treated nor tell the stories of those slaves and their descendants into the Jim Crow era and early civil rights era, same with all the immigrants that were mistreated and abused coming into our country. This too is part of history and would help us understand many of the problems of today and perhaps point the way to solutions of those problems.

    It is a great taboo part of American history that made us what we are today. Ironically all of these people added to what became American, but their part of the story is ignored and we basically only tell the story of the Anglo-Saxon Americans as though they created all of this all by themselves. So we do not teach history but Anglo-Saxon Myth. Now we hardly teach history at all.

    One more thing historically Police suffer less death and violence now that at any other time of my life. The high point of violence against police was the 1970s and 1980s. Also the violent crime rate has been continuing to fall since then with occasional brief spurts from time to time.

  4. Unlike the author, T. Thorn Coyle, and the majority of the people quoted in this article, I was actually alive during Washington and Selma. I remember his death and the violence that erupted afterwards.

    And, frankly, I think it takes a lot of gall for someone who *wasn’t* alive then and who only knows of those times through a distorted ideology to tell me that I celebrate the “whitewashed and sanitized” version of the man’s life.

    I was there. I remember. I will observe MLK day as I see fit, not you.

    • The issue has nothing to do with “who was there” or not. What’s at issue is how today’s white Americans understand the life and legacy of MLK as revealed through behavior and statements. It’s very clear that many white Americans believe that racism was exclusively a Southern phenomenon that effectively ended when King and his generation stopped institutionalized segregation in schools and lunch counters.