ADD this page to get action bulletins and updates from BAMN - the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary!
VICTORY!! On March 7, 2006, BAMN organized more than 400 L.A. high school and middle school students to go to the courthouse to demand their voices be heard in defense of school integration in the historic LA school desegregation case. WE WON!!! BAMN nearly 300 LA students and community members are now a party to this landmark case! Read the report from the day and watch the TV story.
Contact BAMN Los Angeles: (323) 317-7675
BAMN BAY AREA
MAY 1, 2006: BAMN Oakland organized and led a 50,000+ person march for immigrant rights in Oakland, CA!
KRON Channel 4 features one of BAMN Oakland's high school organizers. (Find the clip on their home page here.) See the raw helicopter footage or KTVU Channel 2, or KGO Channel 7 (click here and poke around the most recent video pages 1-2-3-4)
We are forming BAMN Chapters in the Oakland schools. If you want to be a leader at your school, contact us at (510) 502-9072 and california@bamn.com.
Contact BAMN Bay Area: (510) 502-9072
VICTORY AT THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
The BAMN chapter centered in Detroit, Michigan spearheaded the effort that led to BAMN's most historic victory to date, organizing a 50,000-person March on Washington on April 1, 2003 that coincided with the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing on the University of Michigan affirmative action cases. As a result of this march and the movement leading up to it, the Supreme Court UPHELD affirmative action for the entire country! Get more info here.
April 1, 2003 March on Washington
GALLERY
DALLAS, TX:
This great news clip from DALLAS on March 28 shows exuberant protests and students storming Dallas City Hall, and, predictably, frightened warnings from media and establishment leaders. (Choose the video called "Students Walk Out, Protest For Second Day") Video NBC5 Dallas
ESCONDIDO, CA:
Watch this video of students walking out in Escondido, CA (near San Diego)! NBCSanDiego.com
FRESNO, CA: See this great photo report about the Fresno, CA walkouts! About 500 rallied downtown on March 27. The movement grew so quickly that by the next day more than 6,000 walked out and rallied downtown!
HUNTINGTON PARK, CA: Watch this extended-length helicopter video of hundreds of Huntington Park, CA students walking out and getting students at other schools to join them! These walkouts took place on Friday, March 24 and helped spark the national movement!
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary
BAMN.com Myspace.com/nationalbamn
West Coast: 323.317.7675 East Coast: 313.645.9360
Latina/o, Black, Native American, Asian, Arab, and White, Immigrants With & Without Papers—
WE ARE ALL ARIZONANS!
Keep ACRI Off the Ballot
Defend Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity
Build the New Civil Rights Movement
MARCH & RALLY
Saturday, June 14, 2008
5:00PM
Falcon Park, across the street from Carl Hayden High School
(N. 35th Ave., W. Roosevelt, Phoenix, AZ)
We must stop ACRI, the attack on affirmative action, equal opportunity, and integration in Arizona. ACRI is the one ballot proposal aimed at increasing discrimination against and inequality for all of Arizona’s minority communities and women. The aim of ACRI is to deny every Latina/o, black and Native American young person, even those everyone regards as our brightest stars, from being able to go to college and become doctors, lawyers, teachers, or engineers.
Deceptively called the "Arizona Civil Rights Initiative," ACRI is nothing more than an attempt by the racists in this state to broaden their anti-Latina/o and anti-immigrant campaigns into an attack against every brown and black person in this state. The KKK-supported ACRI is a ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution to ban all affirmative action programs in Arizona. ACRI would outlaw all the equal opportunity programs won out of the civil rights movement that combat de facto segregation and open the doors to college and job opportunities for minorities and women.
Racism and sexism still structure opportunity. If ACRI reaches its goal of collecting 230,000 signatures before its July 3rd deadline and passes this November, it will drive out Latina/o, black, Native American and other minority students and women from the state's universities. Separate and unequal would be institutionalized in Arizona.
If we unite, we win. Building the new integrated youth-led civil rights movement is the key to victory. Our communities have tremendous power. The new civil rights movement is the real hope for progress, prosperity, freedom and justice in our state. And, so like Martin Luther King and César Chávez, we march.
We march to stop ACRI and all the attacks on the Latina/o and immigrant communities. We march to defeat the new Jim Crow. We march to end second-class treatment for brown and black. We march because when we march together we can see and feel the power we possess. We march because it is the only way for our state and our nation to progress and realize our ideals of democracy, freedom and justice. We march to win.
For too long, the right-wing racists of Arizona have gotten away with scapegoating undocumented people and trying to pit black, Latina/o, and immigrant communities against each other. Their aim is to weaken the struggle for equality. We can end this now. If we fight together and keep ACRI off the ballot, we can hand the right-wing a significant defeat. If we win this fight, we can stop the tidal wave of racist anti-immigrant, anti-Latina/o attacks ripping apart our state.
Keep ACRI Off the Ballot
The only sure way to defeat ACRI is to keep it off the ballot. Mass community mobilizing led by BAMN succeeded at keeping identical initiatives off the ballot earlier this year in Missouri and Oklahoma. We can win here if we can stop voters from signing the ballot petitions for ACRI. The people who are circulating the petitions lie about what ACRI is about. Signature gathers are paid huge sums of money to gather voters signatures and they flat out lie to get those signatures. We need people standing next to them telling voters the truth. We need people telling voters the truth that the Klan backs ACRI and that those who circulate or sign the petition are supporting racism. We need volunteers to tell people DO NOT TO SIGN THE ACRI PETITION.
The days when any racist with enough money can use Arizona's ballot initiative process to take away our rights and opportunities must come to an end.
Latina/o, Black, Native American, Asian, Arab, and White, Immigrants With and Without Papers—We Are All Arizonans
The massive solidarity demonstrated in the marches and walkouts of in spring 2006, led first and foremost by the Latina/o community and actively supported by broad sections of this state, defeated the racist, reactionary anti-immigrant HR 4437 and show the method of mass struggle and unity that can win.
Join us in making clear to the State of Arizona that we need to stand up together to stop the resegregation of our state. Take a stand for the rights of Latina/o, black, and other minority students and women to go to college, and for the rights of all people to live with dignity and to be treated with respect. Become a leader of the new civil rights movement and lead this nation out of the darkness of fear, prejudice, cynicism and despair the hallmarks of the right wing program for America and into the light of optimism, progress and hope. ¡Sí Se Puede!
A great shift is occurring in our nation. The outcome of the national election is still months away, and yet something much greater has already changed: we have changed. Our generation is gleaming with optimism and excitement. For the millions of young people asserting political demands for the first time, what began as opposition to the Iraq war has grown into a declaration of hope for becoming a nation no longer separated along lines of gender and race. It took only a few months for our generation to brush aside old notions that once seemed invincible. Yesterday’s view was that a fundamental change for the better would have to wait until some indefinite point in the future; today’s view is that such a change is really possible now.
This swift change of views has arrived at an important moment for our nation. Now is the time to remove all the barriers of race and gender that deform opportunity in our nation. UCLA, UC Berkeley and the other elite campuses around the country have been moving backwards since they have implemented state bans on affirmative action programs, against the interest of the student body on these campuses and of Latina/o, black and Native American students. While our generation has distinguished itself for breaking the racial and gender barriers to the American presidency, college campuses in California and other places in the country have experienced a fortification of those barriers against minorities and women gaining a college degree. At UCLA and UC Berkeley the enforcement of Proposition 209 has driven down underrepresented minority enrollment to the token levels that existed forty years ago. We cannot accept these conditions any longer, not in the face of a generation so eager to do away with the old social divisions.
Our generation needs a voice to speak for our own interests and aspirations. Our demands for progress need to be heaerd beyond the vote tallies in primary caucuses – we need to be heard here and now. In this state. On this campus. Everywhere. We need our own leaders, and we need to BE leaders ourselves. We are the leaders of our generation. Join us and work to change our society today.
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
Strike Down Prop 2! Defeat Ward Connerly's Ballot Drives in Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma! Defend Grutter v. Bollinger Defend the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Oppose Racially-Targeted Voter Fraud! Restore Affirmative Action in Michigan, California, and Washington
BAMN has filed a second federal lawsuit against Michigan's Proposal 2, which passed in November 2006 and outlawed affirmative action programs in Michigan. Building the new civil rights movement nationwide to defend our Supreme Court victory in Grutter v. Bollinger, we can win this lawsuit and overturn anti-affirmative action ballot measures across the country, including Michigan's Proposal 2, California's Proposition 209, and Washington's Initiative 200.
The Michigan fight teaches us that by far the best way to defeat Connerly's initiative drives is to prevent them from getting on the ballot in the first place. Take action in your state now!
We felt our strength and power when we walked out and marched for our freedom and dignity. It was because of our actions that the racist law HR4437 was eliminated. This year we will keep fighting. We are not going to accept any second-class treatment any longer! The César Chávez holiday has been ignored for seven years now and treated as inferior. We all know and understand that the Chávez holiday represents the struggle for immigrant rights and Latino equality in this nation. By ignoring the Chávez holiday, the school districts are ignoring us, our struggle for equality and our dignity, and that must end now! Whether they want to close down the schools to honor the Chávez holiday or not, we are closing them and forcing everyone to recognize our Movement and honor the Chávez holiday!
CIRCULATE THE PETITION to Honor California's César Chávez Holiday!
Download the PETITION ( EnglishSpanish ) and get it filled out at your school, church, or neighborhood to Honor the César Chávez Holiday. It’s a great way to organize in the schools, and to get lists of people and their contact info. Show the petitions to your school board and the media, and mail a copy to BAMN at the address below.
Send petitions to: BAMN / P.O. Box 76137 / Los Angeles, CA 90076
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
ACT ON The Dream Act The senate might do a little bit to help the children of immigrants...please please get the word out....WE NEED TO CALL.
Please CALL/ SEND EMAIL THEN COPY THIS AND REPOST REPOST...
The DREAM Act was introduced today as Senate Amendment 2919.
Right now, five of six calls the Senators are getting are from anti-immigration radicals. We need you to help close the gap and voice the real support that the DREAM Act has in our community!
We need your help NOW to keep the DREAM Act from suffering the same fate as comprehensive immigration reform.
Start calling and emailing NOW, before Senators get the idea (again) that they only hear from anti-immigrant constituents, and that they should play it safe and vote against the amendment.
To Send an email: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2119/t/3250/campaign.js p?campaign_KEY=13039 Call (800) 614-2803 (toll-free) and ask for your Senators' offices. To find out who your Senators are click here.
When you are connected, deliver the following message:
"The dreams of millions of undocumented students cannot wait another year! We need your leadership in the Senate to move the DREAM Act. Students have waited years for this legislation, do not fail these million of students another year! Please vote for the Durbin-Hagel-Lugar DREAM Act amendment to the DOD Authorization bill so that immigrant students brought here as children can realize their potential."
We felt our strength and power when we walked out and marched for our freedom and dignity. It was because of our actions that the racist law HR4437 was eliminated. This year we will keep fighting. We are not going to accept any second-class treatment any longer! The César Chávez holiday has been ignored for seven years now and treated as inferior. We all know and understand that the Chávez holiday represents the struggle for immigrant rights and Latino equality in this nation. By ignoring the Chávez holiday, the school districts are ignoring us, our struggle for equality and our dignity, and that must end now! Whether they want to close down the schools to honor the Chávez holiday or not, we are closing them and forcing everyone to recognize our Movement and honor the Chávez holiday!
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