400 March Against Police Violence, Racial and Class Oppression During The Final Four Tournament

more march photos here

Over 400 people rallied in front of City Hall today against the recent police murders of Justin Sipp and Wendell Allen, as well as in support of Trayvon Martin's family and other victims of unaccountable police and vigilante terrorism.

During the march, at least 3 police cars had their tires slashed, and at City Hall people wrote dozens of messages in chalk about racism and police violence for city officials to see on their way in to work on Monday. 

Speakers connected the economic subjugation of the city's largely African-American working class to the violence of the police in upholding a racist and classist social order. The marchers formed a diverse picture of the New Orleans community, with older African-American civil rights activists down to little 8 year olds holding signs calling for justice, as well as a sizable number of white people, including SOAR from Tulane University, who were willing to stand up to the racist violence done supposedly in the name of their "safety."

The march wound its way down Poydras Ave., in full view of the thousands of college basketball fans coming to party in a city where the ruling class has been desperately trying to hide the fact that it is a racist, apartheid police state before the tourists arrive. Many took photos with their camera phones, with the few non-white fans eager to take fliers and read what the marchers-- shouting "no justice, no peace!" and accompanied by a brass band and African style drummers-- were protesting. Most of the white fans just looked confused and uninterested.

The march then headed down Carondelet St. and up Canal Street to Loyola Ave, where it turned and headed back to City Hall. The crowd on Canal Street, away from the hordes of tourists, was much more receptive and responsive to the cries of justice for victims of police violence. Arriving back to City Hall, a woman fainted from heat stroke and had to be picked up by an ambulance, with tense arguments erupting between the woman's family and the NOPD cops who were on the scene and treating her concerns dismissively.

What's next?

Denver keeping it real

Many people see this as only the beginning of a struggle against police violence and apartheid conditions in New Orleans. Many discussions around neighborhood self-defense committees have been making the rounds in social media, and perhaps that is where the struggle should go next.

Organize your neighborhood to keep the police out and keep disputes mediated between residents so the police are unnecessary. Community autonomy is ultimately the only way we can keep ourselves safe from police terrorism, because the police will always work for the rich since they have the power to fund politicans' campaigns, and therefore get politicians to legislate for their interests and protection, at our expense.

Erect barricades to block the economy of the city until Wendell Allen's murderer Jason Colclough is arrested, and until Justin and Earl Sipp's shooters are put on trial so the facts can come out about what happened to them. Defend your barricades from the NOPD dismantling them with your friends and neighbors. Learn how to be together in the streets, get each others' backs, and deal with the cops trying to force a return to business as usual while NOPD murderers still freely walk the streets. Test your skills, build your confidence, challenge yourself. This is what it will take. All that's left is to begin.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others. --Fredrick Douglass

Changing the Mayor or police chief, as some proposed at the march, will do nothing to make the situation any better because politics is a puppet show put on for us by the economic elites to distract our anger away from blaming them. 

Disruption of the economy is the strongest way for the struggle to win victories. From roadblocks to sit-ins, strikes to occupations, flexing people power to stop the normal functioning of the apartheid economy in New Orleans -- an economy protected by unaccountable police terrorism -- will put pressure on the political class to solve the situation before the ruling elites get angry at the politicians for allowing the situation to get to the point where we are angry enough to interrupt their profits to demand freedom.

Organize. Fight back. This is only a beginning.
If you want help organizing in your hood, or are taking action, be sure to let others know, including us (leave us a comment or email us at nolaanarcha@gmail.com ).
Resistance inspires resistance! 
Don't fight alone!