oakland
About BAJI Oakland
BAJI-Oakland is BAJI’s first organizing committee and has a strong history of community organizing aimed at building power within the African Diaspora.
The Bay Area has been known for its rich legacy of self-determination struggles and cross-cultural movement building represented in many different movements that catalyzed in the Bay; the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Third World Liberation Front, the Black Power Movement, Alcatraz Island Occupation and American Indian Movement, and many more struggles. With an intergenerational organizing committee of Black Movement activists and organizers of the past and present, BAJI-Oakland draws from the rich organizing legacy in the Bay Area to grow and build current movements for racial justice and immigrant rights.
The BAJI-Oakland Organizing Committee is a volunteer-based chapter comprised of individuals who identify as Black/African descent. Everyday people and movement activists attend monthly organizing committee meetings to move forward several campaigns and projects that our committee is involved in.
HIGHLIGHTS
ACTIVITIES & CAMPAIGNS
- STOP URBAN SHIELD: A coalition aimed at ending Alameda County’s participation in the annual Urban Shield SWAT Team training and special weapons/technology exposition with law enforcement agencies and first responders across the globe.
- AFRICAN DIASPORA DIALOGUES: Community conversations amongst African Americans and Black Immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbeans that bring transformative change and mutual understanding by hosting discussion forums on issues of race, culture and identity .
- ALAMEDA COUNTY UNITED IN DEFENSE OF IMMIGRANT RIGHTS (ACUDIR): BAJI participates in this coalition that aims to advance immigrant rights in Alameda County through advocacy at the county level.
- STOP ZOOLOGIZING AFRICANS: A successful campaign to remove a racist “African Village” display at the Oakland Zoo that modeled a traditional Kikuyu (Kenyan tribe) woman’s home.
FREE THE PEOPLE CARAVAN: A successful statewide caravan from the Bay and LA to Bakersfield, CA to Free a Ghanaian asylum-seeker, Kwesi Amuzu, who was indefinitely detained by ICE at Mesa Verde Detention Facility which is a private facility owned by GeoGroup.