Valentines Speech at Oscar Grant Plaza for Defend Aunti Frances
On February 14th, 2018, a coalition of Oakland community organizations delivered a “People’s Proposal for Public Land” to City Council. On behalf of Defend Aunti Frances, I delivered the following speech (which was workshoped with fellow DAF organizer Sara/Felix Linck)
As many of you may already know, Aunti Frances Moore is a black elder and resident of North Oakland, where she’s organized the Self-Help Hunger program in her neighborhood at a small public park called Drivers Plaza. At Drivers Plaza, Aunti Frances and volunteers with program have for 8 years come out every week to offer direct services and hot meals cooked in her apartment, just down the street. Self-Help Hunger and allied groups have fought an ongoing battle with the City of Oakland over their right to use that public land for public good. Like we’ve seen all over the city, from East 12th Street to The Village to the Coliseum, getting together and fighting is the only way the City Officials concede rights to even a sliver of Oakland to working class, black and brown, residents rather than the developers, real estate interests, and speculators, who will stop at nothing to monopolize all the land they can, and steal poor people's incomes through higher and higher rents. Unfortunately, Aunti Frances is not able to be here today because she’s conserving her energy for another fight, the fight against a no-fault eviction by a speculating gentrifier—the court process for which begins next week. So I’m here, speaking as a member of the organizing committee for Defend Aunti Frances, to stand with you all for the People’s Proposal for Public Land.
I want to tell you about how you can support Aunti Frances’s fight to stay in her home, in her neighborhood, to keep up her local commitment to preserve public land for the people. Aunti Frances is facing a no-fault eviction through an owner-occupancy loophole in Oakland’s Just Cause for Eviction ordinance. This is one of the loopholes that that the Close the Loopholes coalition has been talking about, sometimes called the duplex/triplex loophole. For several months now we’ve been organizing to demand that Aunti Frances’s landlords, the Morphys, drop the eviction. Next Wednesday, bright and early at 8am, we’re asking everyone who can to join us at the Hayward Hall of Justice for a rally outside Aunti France’s settlement hearing with her landlords. In the spirit of the Self-Help Hunger program, we’ll be offering breakfast and coffee, not only to rally participants, but also to fellow community members with hearings. As many of you may know, not too long ago Oakland eviction cases were heard in Oakland, but, due to statewide austerity measures that work to the benefit of landlords, all Alameda county evictions are heard in Hayward. We know that many people can’t come on a Wednesday morning, and that for many who can getting out there won’t be easy. So I’m here with a signup sheet for those of you who can make it next Wednesday and could offer a ride or would like to be given a right. We know that, rooted in solidarity and mutual aid, you can’t evict community power.
We also have one other ask. Today I’m here with valentines card cut outs. If you love Aunti Frances and want her and her landlords to know that, please come fill one out and we can deliver it for you.
