Street SpiritJ U S T I C E N E W S & H O M E L E S S B L U E S I N T H E B A Y A R E A

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by Alex Darocy

On August 11, community mem-bers in Santa Cruz held theirfifth in a series of sleep-outsorganized at City Hall to

protest local laws that make it illegal forhomeless people to sleep in public. Policearrived at midnight and issued citations tomany of the demonstrators who wereattempting to sleep in the courtyard as anact of civil disobedience.

Police also issued 24-hour stay-awayorders to at least two of those present, anda journalist who has been documentingthe whole series of protests was arrestedand taken to jail. After police left, most ofthe protesters remained and slept on thesidewalk until the next morning.

Undaunted by the arrests and citations,demonstrators returned to City Hall andcarried out their next action one weeklater, on the evening of Tuesday, August18, followed by still another sleepout onAugust 25.

The courtyard area of Santa Cruz CityHall is closed to the public at night, whichis one of the issues addressed by homelessrights demonstrators. Their desire is to seecity parks opened at night so that peoplewithout homes will have a place to gowhere they are not targeted by police.

Another focus of the protests has beenthe local Sleeping/Camping Ban, whichprohibits sleeping in public in the city(with or without setting up bedding)

between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8:30a.m. The ordinance also criminalizessleeping in cars.

The sleepout on August 11 may havebeen the first time the city’s stay-awayordinance in local parks has been usedagainst political protesters and journalists.

Many of those participating in thecampouts are now calling themselves,“Freedom Sleepers.”

They first arrived at City Hall at 3 p.m.for the August 11 protest. The weatherwas warm and some individuals tookadvantage of the solar shower set up by

booth organizers in the courtyard. A duo played music in the courtyard

through the campers’ PA system as theCity Council meeting began inside.Adjacent to council chambers, snackswere provided on a Food Not Bombs

Sleepouts in Defiance of Santa Cruz Sleeping Ban

Santa Cruz police arrest journalists and issue stay-away orders during the sleep-out protests. Photo by Alex Darocy, Indybay.org.

by Terry Messman

The path of nonviolence is a lifelongjourney that leads in unexpecteddirections to far-distant destinations.

One of the most meaningful milestones onShelley Douglass’s path of nonviolencecame on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 16, 1983,when she walked down the railroad tracksinto the Bangor naval base with KarolSchulkin and Mary Grondin from theGround Zero Center for Nonviolent Action.

As the three women walked down thetracks used to transport nuclear warheadsand missile motors into the naval base, theyposted photographs of the atomic bomb vic-tims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — aprophetic warning of the catastrophic con-sequences of Trident nuclear submarines.

The photos revealed the human face ofwar, the face of defenseless civilians struckdown in a nuclear holocaust. The womencontinued on this pilgrimage deep into theheart of the Trident base, until security offi-cers arrested them an hour after they began.

Their journey into the Trident base wasboth a political call for nuclear disarma-ment and a spiritual call to turn awayfrom the ways of war. The three womenspoke from the heart of their faith tradi-tion by praying for peace and seekingarrest on Ash Wednesday.

The statement they released after theirarrest merged the political and the spiritual,invoking both the principles of international

law and the spiritual law of love. “We walkthese tracks as an appeal to all people totake seriously the principles of internationallaw against indiscriminate and aggressiveweapons. We walk these tracks as an appealto all people to heed the law of love writtenby our creator in the human heart.”

‘NOT IN MY NAME’After their arrest, Shelley Douglass was

jailed for 60 days. Karol Schulkin was alsojailed and told the court: “I must stand upand say, ‘no more’ — no more bombingsand burning of people and lands. Not in myname. I reclaim my humanity. I will act onwhat I know. I refuse to remain silent.”

As Ground Zero continued to organizeacts of resistance to the Trident submarine,Shelley was led onward by a deeper under-standing of what was at stake. She said,“We objected not to Trident in particularbut to the entire arms race, and to the newfirst-strike policy which Trident represents.

“Our resistance had to be deep enoughto address the societal causes of the armsrace — our own selfishness and greed, oursystem’s exploitation of people for profit,the oppression of people based on theirrace, age, or sex. If a nonviolent campaignwas to be successful in the deepest sense, ithad to include these sources of violence andtake into account the pervasive nature ofmany forms of violence in our lives.”

The history of nonviolent organizing forsocial change encompasses a vast and

imaginative diversity of movements forpeace and justice — a far richer legacy ofresistance than the public generally real-izes. The larger picture of nonviolenceinvolves literally thousands of creativecampaigns to protect the entire web of lifewherever it is imperiled — “reweaving theweb of life,” as a groundbreaking antholo-gy of feminist writings on nonviolence

once described it. In fact, there are as many forms of cre-

ative nonviolence as there are threats to lifeon the planet. In the life of ShelleyDouglass, we can trace a path that beginswith antiwar actions, then leads to an inven-tive array of nonviolent methods to resistmultiple forms of injustice and violence.

Living for Peace in the Shadow of Death

Shelley Douglass shares bread with Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen at peace vigilon the railroad tracks at the Bangor Naval Base, in protest of Trident submarines.

See Shelley Douglass Living for Peace page 8

See Sleep-Outs in Defiance page 16

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T2

by Terry Messman

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., anentire city was shattered and theworld was changed forever when

an atomic bomb was dropped on theunsuspecting residents of Hiroshima by aU.S. B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay.

The bomb fell silently from the sky for43 seconds, then a cataclysmic explosionturned the city of Hiroshima into a raginginferno, blasting buildings into nothing-ness, and incinerating tens of thousands ofchildren, women and men.

An estimated 80,000 human beingswere destroyed instantly in the first heart-stopping moments of the UnforgettableFire, while countless others died slowly inthe months and years to come from terri-ble burns, injuries and exposure to lethalradioactivity. By the end of 1945, an esti-mated 140,000 people had died inHiroshima and at least another 90.000 haddied in Nagasaki from the second atomicbomb attack on August 9, 1945.

Countless people were literally vapor-ized, leaving only shadows on the wallsand sidewalks of Hiroshima — ghostlyreminders of the lives that had beenreduced to atoms by the atomic blast.

This year, on August 6, 2015, more than300 people gathered at LawrenceLivermore Laboratory on the 70th anniver-sary of the annihilation of Hiroshima toprotest the nuclear weapons designed at thefacility that some activists have called a“holocaust laboratory.”

HAUNTING SHADOWS OF HIROSHIMA

Following the rally, protesters marchedto the gates of Livermore and blocked theentrance to the weapons laboratory, staginga die-in on the roadway while chalk out-lines were drawn around their bodies.

After more than 50 people were arrest-ed and taken away by police for this act ofcivil disobedience, only the chalk outlinesremained, a haunting memorial to the vic-tims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki whowere blasted into shadows on the walls ofthe two Japanese cities turned into rubbleby U.S. nuclear weapons.

Chizu Hamada, the organizer of NoNukes Action Committee, formed afterthe Fukushima meltdown to protestJapanese and U.S. government nuclearpolicies, described the enormous loss oflife and the unparalleled human sufferingcaused by the atomic bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki.

She urged the gathering to carry on theirprotests in honor of the spirits of those whodied in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In anextraordinarily moving appeal, Hamadaasked protesters to keep working fornuclear abolition because the fate of theentire world hangs in the balance.

“We must keep on protesting,” ChizuHamada said. “We must never give upbecause the spirits of Hiroshima andNagasaki victims are here now, and arewishing the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

The organizers and speakers at theHiroshima Day action at Livermore are aliving testimony to the lasting dedicationthat has kept alive the anti-nuclear move-ment for decades. Daniel Ellsberg andCountry Joe McDonald, two of the mostprominent voices of the antiwar move-ment, came to Livermore this year,

demonstrating their longstanding faithful-ness to the cause of preventing war andabolishing nuclear weapons.

Ellsberg has been a dedicated andinsightful voice for peace and disarma-ment for more than 40 years. Since releas-ing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, Ellsberghas spoken out tirelessly against nuclearweapons, and has been arrested more than100 times for acts of civil disobedience.

Country Joe McDonald wrote and per-formed one of the greatest of all antiwaranthems, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to DieRag,” and composed several other politi-cally outspoken songs, including“Superbird” and “An Untitled Protest.”

McDonald went on to record a classicalbum, “Thinking of Woody Guthrie,” fea-turing his beautiful versions of Guthrie’sradical populist anthems. McDonald is oneof the very few musicians who hasremained personally involved in antiwaractivism, veterans rights, and environmen-tal causes for the past 50 years.

Jackie Cabasso, executive director ofWestern States Legal Foundation, andMarylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, have been two of theleading Bay Area organizers for nucleardisarmament for the past three decades.

Cabasso cofounded Western States in1982 and Kelley launched Tri-ValleyCAREs in 1983. Both organizationsbegan at the height of the anti-nuclearmovement in California in the early1980s, but while many other peace groupsfolded, Cabasso and Kelley haveremained constantly dedicated and arenow recognized as leading voices in themovement for nuclear disarmament.

VOICES OF THE HIBAKUSHA

Perhaps the most moving expression ofdevotion to the cause of peace and disar-mament has been demonstrated by thehibakusha, Japanese survivors of the atom-ic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki whooften have suffered lifelong injuries anddiseases caused by atomic radiation.

Of all the powerful voices that spokeout for disarmament on the 70th anniver-sary of the Hiroshima bombing, the mostpoignant moment came when TakashiTanemori, a survivor of the first atomicblast, appeared at the gates of LivermoreLaboratory. He seemed to speak as thevoice of conscience for all those who wereforever silenced by the atomic attacks thatleveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Takashi Tanemori was only 8 years oldwhen the bomb fell on Hiroshima. The

brilliant white flash of the atomic blastwas the last thing he ever saw, for on thatday, Takashi lost both parents, his twosiblings — and his eyesight.

He described that devastating momentin his book, Hiroshima: Bridge toForgiveness. “Without warning! Blinding,burning, shocking white light! I coveredmy closed eyes. I saw pure white lightthrough my covered eyes....

“In an instant my school and allHiroshima had evaporated. When Iregained consciousness, I awoke in Hell.The three-story wooden frame school hadcollapsed into a heap of matchsticks. Myfirst floor classroom lay shattered andflattened on the ground. Beneath the heap,I lay buried on my back, unable to move.I couldn’t see anything.”

Takashi Tanemori would never see any-thing again for the rest of his life. He spokeout at Livermore this year as a livingreminder that the survivors of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki were sentenced to suffer forthe rest of their lives from the terrible after-effects of the U.S. bombing.

Chizu Hamada said, “Even now, 70years later, aftereffects remain, such asleukemia, A-bomb cataracts, cancers,birth defects, mental retardation. And thefear of birth defects in children will lastmany generations.”

HIROSHIMA WAS ‘MASS MURDER’Daniel Ellsberg said, “The killing at

Hiroshima was mass murder — terrorism.” “The killing of civilian noncombatants

for political purposes is terrorism andmass murder — nothing else. It shouldnot have happened. It did not need to hap-pen. It should never happen again.”

Ellsberg was only 14 in 1945 when theatomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,yet he said he felt “very great dismay”and realized even then that a “very omi-nous thing had happened.”

In the 1960s, Ellsberg was a militaryanalyst for the Rand Corporation and aconsultant to the Departments of Defenseand State, specializing in the commandand control of nuclear weapons, and help-ing carry out a top-secret study of U.S.military operations in the Vietnam War.

After becoming convinced that theUnited States was pursuing the wrongcourse, Ellsberg released the PentagonPapers in 1971 to the New York Times andbegan speaking out against the war.

Nearly everyone remembers Ellsbergas the whistleblower who released thePentagon Papers, but not as many realize

his enormous dedication to the anti-nuclear movement. Ellsberg was instru-mental in the protests at the Rocky Flatsplutonium trigger plant in Colorado, andwas arrested in the 1970s in acts of civildisobedience there.

He went on to be arrested many timesin nonviolent protests at LivermoreLaboratory, the Concord Naval WeaponsStation, the Vandenberg AFB missile testsite and the Nevada Test Site.

Ellsberg was arrested at the first majorprotest held by the Livermore Action Groupin February 1982, and was arrested atLivermore again in June 1983 on theInternational Day of Nuclear Disarmament.Many activists still remember the impas-sioned seminars on nuclear weapons thatEllsberg gave in jail to several hundred ofhis fellow prisoners after the June 1983civil disobedience.

Ellsberg’s arrest at Livermore this yearcame more than 30 years after his firstarrests at Livermore Laboratory.

The kind of peace that was bought withthe continuous building and modernizingand deploying of nuclear weapons,Ellsberg told the gathering, has “made thepossibility of mass murder ever present —and I mean from minute to minute.”

The threat of using nuclear weapons isa policy of “outrageous folly and crimi-nality” that could lead to a nuclear war.“And yet these threats go on — and theyare threats of ending nearly all life.”

THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE

ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT

Ellsberg said that the protests of theanti-nuclear movement were of vitalimportance in stopping the threat ofnuclear war. “All over the world today,”he said, “there are groups like this. And ifit hadn’t been for groups like this, wewould have had a nuclear war earlier.”

He vividly described the moment whenthe atom bomb was dropped and then askeddemonstrators to imagine being one of theunsuspecting residents of Hiroshima duringthe few seconds after the bomb wasreleased — but before it exploded in amushroom cloud that obliterated the city.

“The bomb is usually described as hav-ing exploded at 8:15 a.m.,” Ellsberg said.“When I was in Hiroshima, I noticedsomething odd. In all of the museums andthe illustrations and artifacts of the bomb,there were watches that stopped when thebomb exploded, all at the same time. Butthey were not stopping at 8:15. They were

Protesting the Holocaust Laboratory at Livermore“The killing of civilian non-combatants for political pur-poses is terrorism and massmurder — nothing else. Itshould not have happened. Itdid not need to happen. Itshould never happen again.”

— Daniel Ellsberg

See Livermore Protest page 3

Daniel Ellsberg speaks at Livermore Lab about the “outrageous folly and criminality” of nuclear weapons. Ellen Danchik photo

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 3

stopping at 8:16.”Ellsberg learned that the bomb was

dropped at 8:15 a.m. on the morning ofAugust 6, 1945, but it took 43 seconds tofall from the plane flying at 31,060 feet. Itwas released on a parachute to give theplane time to get away. So even as thebomb fell on the unsuspecting city below,people went about their daily business fornearly one more minute.

One more minute of life...Ellsberg asked people to close their

eyes and imagine themselves to beJapanese residents of Hiroshima thatmorning, still in bed, or at the breakfasttable with their family, or walking towork or attending school, just as survivorshave described doing in that last minute.

“At 8:15, all of these people weredoomed,” Ellsberg said. “But they had 43seconds in which to live on earth withother people. Try that. Be there. Thebomb has dropped. Close your eyes andimagine yourselves living in Hiroshima.”

At the gates of Livermore, hundreds ofpeople were silent for 43 seconds — theentire span of life left for tens of thou-sands of defenseless civilians inHiroshima as the bomb silently fell.

At the end of 43 seconds, Ellsbergsaid, “Time for a baby to be conceived oreven born. Time to look at flowers. Timeto say goodbye to your child as he leavesfor school. An amazing amount of time.

“Every minute of that is precious.That’s what we’re threatening and weshouldn’t be. Every minute of that, letalone several years, is precious.”

Ellsberg then invited people to joinhim in committing civil disobedience byblocking the gates at Livermore. “It’snever really a good day to die,” he said.“But this is a good day to get arrested.”

‘DON’T DROP THE H-BOMB ON ME’Country Joe McDonald animated the

gathering by performing a mini-concert ofantiwar anthems and anti-Bomb ballads,delivered in his unique blend of countercul-tural radicalism and the satiric surrealismthat provided a soundtrack for the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Back in 1967, Country Joe and the Fishrecorded a plaintive song, “ThoughtDream,” that unexpectedly mutated into arefrain that could have been a sardonic slo-gan of the anti-nuclear movement: “Pleasedon’t drop that H-Bomb on me!”

At the gates of Livermore Laboratory,Country Joe kept alive that classic combi-nation of sarcastic wit and antiwar outrageby performing a black-humor ballad aboutWorld War III called “Camouflage.”

“I’ve got a camouflage house and a camouflage cara camouflage pool in my backyard.And I ain’t afraid of World War IIIcuz if they drop the Bomb I’ll just melt into the scenery.”The song lampoons the paranoia of the

nuclear age by depicting a survivalist whois ready to hide from the holocaust in hiscamouflage gear. It includes a truly chill-ing double entendre: “If they drop theBomb, I’ll just melt into the scenery.”

That disquieting image calls to mindthe residents of Hiroshima who literallymelted into the scenery — melted andvaporized into shadows on the wall.

Next, McDonald sang one of the mosteffective anti-war anthems of all, a greatderisive blast against the masters of warwho would march people lockstep intobattlegrounds and graveyards.

“And it’s one, two, three,What are we fighting for?Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,Next stop is Vietnam.

And it’s five, six, seven,Open up the pearly gates.Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,Whoopee! We’re all gonna die.”McDonald’s timeless song of dissent

exposes the duplicity of military leaderswho indoctrinate the brainwashed massesto fight and die and never wonder why.

Both these songs are hilarious send-upsof the absurdity of war, but there is anoth-er, very different dimension ofMcDonald’s political songwriting. Hewrote “An Untitled Protest,” a quietly pow-erful lament that depicts the full tragedy ofwar for its youngest victims.

“An Untitled Protest” is a hauntingelegy for the countless children who havefallen victim to U.S. bombing raids ontheir homeland — raids by “silver birds”that blindly drop anti-personnel weaponson “shores they’ve never seen.”

“Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes,While cold silver birds who came to cruise the skiesSend death down to bend and twist her tiny handsAnd then proceed to Target B in keeping with their plans.”In a voice both mournful and quietly

outraged, McDonald portrays the destruc-tion unleashed by “the death machine”and piloted by khaki soldiers who “ride astone leviathan across a sea of blood.”

LIVERMORE SPENDS ONE BILLION

DOLLARS ANNUALLY ON NUKES

Marylia Kelley, director of Tri-ValleyCAREs, was one of the lead organizers ofthe Livermore protest on the 70th anniver-sary of Hiroshima, but then she has been aleading organizer for countless Livermoreprotests over the years. When theLivermore Action Group disbanded in1986, only the most highly committedactivists remained to keep the anti-nuclearwork alive, first and foremost MaryliaKelley, Jackie Cabasso and Carolyn Scarrof the Ecumenical Peace Institute.

Tri-Valley CAREs has extensivelyresearched the laboratory’s funding, prior-ities and nuclear weapons projects. Kelleyreported that Livermore Laboratory is cur-rently involved in modernizing the U.S.nuclear arsenal and designing new long-range nuclear warheads.

Many people would like to believe thatthe arms race is winding down, andLivermore Lab’s public relations depart-ment often claims that lab technicians arenow focused on projects such as energyefficiency and nuclear energy research.Yet, Tri-Valley CAREs reports that theoverwhelming majority of the lab’s bud-get is spent on nuclear weapons.

More than 85 percent of Livermore’sfunding is designated for nuclear weapons— adding up to expenditures of one bil-lion dollars on nuclear weapons activitiesin fiscal year 2016.

In a nation that already has 16,000nuclear weapons, Kelley explained howLivermore Lab technicians are still spend-ing one billion dollars this year alone todesign new nuclear weapons technology.

“A new Long-Range Stand Off nuclearwarhead design and the start of plutoniumshots in the lab’s National IgnitionFacility reveal two facets of this new armsrace,” Kelley said. “In contrast to theCold War, which was largely about sheernumbers, the new arms race and its dan-gers stem from novel military capabilitiesnow being placed into nuclear weapons.”

A CALL TO ACTION

Jackie Cabasso, executive director ofthe Western States Legal Foundation,offered a stirring call to action for peoplecommitting civil disobedience at the gatesof Livermore Laboratory.

Cabasso quoted the profound warninggiven to the UN Special Session onDisarmament in 1982 by then-Mayor ofHiroshima, Takeshi Araki.

Hiroshima’s mayor told the UnitedNations: “Hiroshima is not merely a wit-ness of history. Hiroshima is an endlesswarning to the future of humankind. IfHiroshima is ever forgotten, it is evidentthat the mistake will be repeated andbring human history to an end.”

In actuality, the mistake of Hiroshimawas repeated, and only three days later, atNagasaki, obliterated on August 9, 1945.

Cabasso quoted the passionate outcryof Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima:“Nagasaki has to be forever the last city inthe world bombed by nuclear weapons.”

“That is why we’re here,” Cabassosaid — to ensure that nuclear weapons arenever used again.

After people march to the west gate ofLivermore Lab, Cabasso explained, sirenswill sound in remembrance of the secondatomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. “Thesirens will signal a die-in,” she said.

“The chalk outlines that we’ll leavebehind today are solemn reminders of theshadows of human beings vaporized byatomic bombs 70 years ago that still hauntthe walls and sidewalks of Hiroshima andNagasaki.”

Cabasso called on the U.S. governmentto “lead a process with a timetable toachieve the universal elimination ofnuclear weapons.”

As demonstrators applauded the callfor the elimination of nuclear weapons,Cabasso said, “Let us demand: No moreHiroshimas! No more Nagasakis! Nomore Fukushimas! No more wars!”

Street SpiritStreet Spirit is published by AmericanFriends Service Committee. The ven-dor program is run by J.C. Orton.

Editor, Layout: Terry MessmanWeb designer: Jesse ClarkeHuman Rights: Carol Denney

Contributors: Kamran Abri, Claire J.Baker, Janny Castillo, Jess Clarke, RitaCorbin, Ellen Danchik, Alex Darocy,Carol Denney, Robert Norse, StevePleich, Suitcase Clinic, Robert L.Terrell, George Wynn

All works copyrighted by the authors.The views expressed in Street Spirit arti-cles are those of the individual authors,not necessarily those of the AFSC.

Street Spirit welcomes submissions ofarticles, artwork, poems and photos. Contact: Terry MessmanStreet Spirit, 65 Ninth Street,San Francisco, CA 94103E-mail: spirit@afsc.orgWeb: http://www.thestreetspirit.org

The Street SpiritAdvisory CommitteeStreet Spirit is published by AmericanFriends Service Committee, and itswork is guided by an advisory commit-tee of knowledgeable and highly dedi-cated advocates. AFSC expresses ourdeep thanks to the following StreetSpirit advisory committee members:

Janny Castillo, Ellen Danchik, CarolDenney, Michael Diehl, Lydia Gans,David Hartsough, Sister Eva Lumas,Daniel McMullan, The Suitcase Clinic,Pattie Wall, Susan Werner.

from page 2

Country Joe McDonald performed a mini-concert of anti-war anthems at the Livermore demonstration. Ellen Danchik photo

Livermore ProtestHonors Hiroshima

Country Joe McDonald sang one of the most effective anti-war anthems of all, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” agreat derisive blast against the masters of war who wouldmarch people lockstep into battlegrounds and graveyards.

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T4

A Column on Human Rights

by Carol Denney

It ought to be good news that theDepartment of Justice (DOJ) issued astatement of interest on August 6,2015, in a case in Boise, Idaho,

which criticizes the increasing willingnessof cities to criminalize sleeping, sitting,and other inevitable conditions of home-lessness. It sounds like music to thosewho care about human rights.

The first sentence affirms that “on anygiven night in the United States, half amillion people are likely to be experienc-ing homelessness...” which, although anundercount, at least represents the DOJ’srecognition of a crisis.

The DOJ statement cautions that home-less individuals are a diverse populationwith a wide spectrum of unmet needs thatmost communities lack the resources toaddress. It acknowledges that many areforced into homelessness by circumstances“beyond their control,” a phrase in sad needof meditation by politicians. It continues tobe seductive for city councils nationwide toblame the poor for the conditions of pover-ty. But the obvious result of skyrocketingrents and evictions makes it harder to do soin educated circles.

Boise, Idaho, has two ordinances beingchallenged by the National Law Center onHomelessness and Poverty. The first is abroad law against camping in public, andthe second defines “disorderly conduct”

as including lodging or sleeping in anybuilding, structure or place, “whether pub-lic or private” without permission.

The legal challenge points out thatwhen Boise’s shelters are full, peoplewithout homes have no choice but to vio-late these laws. The U.S. Department ofJustice agrees, stating that “when ade-quate shelter space does not exist, there isno meaningful distinction between the sta-tus of being homeless and conduct ofsleeping in public.”

Are the legal departments in citiesnationwide listening? The DOJ statesclearly that laws which criminalize invol-untary behavior or conditions are in viola-tion of the Eighth Amendment protectionsagainst cruel and unusual punishment,making them unconstitutional. But thestatement of interest is not law, and doesnot carry the weight of law.

So the crucial question is: Do city offi-cials and their legal departments have to lis-ten to the DOJ ruling? Yes and no, statedone experienced criminal law attorney whodescribed the statement as “legally mean-ingless.” The statement is probably notedby legal departments and legal observers,but there is no mechanism by which suchstatements affect court cases.

The federal government’s 2012 U.S.Interagency Council on Homelessness(USICH) is certainly counted as an effort tosteer cities away from criminalization, butthe tools for civil rights attorneys have notchanged. The political pressure to prettify

the streets for shoppers has not changed.And the experience of people forced to liveon the street has not changed.

Cities such as San Francisco arealready responding that their laws do notcriminalize homelessness, but are a neces-sary response to maintaining public safetyfrom blocked sidewalks.

The Department of Justice could suecities with unconstitutional laws. But itmight not want to in a political climate inwhich it is consistently criticized for inter-fering with states’ rights, as it has with theissue of gay marriage.

Berkeley attorney Osha Neumann com-mented that the Boise case “has been drag-ging through the courts since 2009 andarises out of arrests of homeless people thatbegan in 2006. It still hasn’t been resolved,and we still don’t have an opinion we cancite as precedent from a court saying thatto arrest homeless people for sleeping out-side when there are no shelters is cruel andunusual punishment. We made that argu-ment to federal court when we were fight-ing the eviction of people who were livingon the Albany Bulb and a federal judgewas supremely uninterested.”

Neumann pointed out that the federalgovernment also has not restored fundingfor low-income housing, and he con-firmed that the Justice Department “couldcertainly launch an investigation of citiesthat are criminalizing homelessness and ifnecessary take enforcement action,including working with the cities to endabuses as they did in Ferguson.”

Pattie Wall, the director of Berkeley’s

Homeless Action Center, agreed thatabsent the force of law, local police willcontinue to issue tickets “with or withoutlaws by the force of state violence.”

She goes on to note that “Berkeley hasbeen unpersuaded by federal policy ontheir criminalization of homelessness. TheUSICH issued a report back in 2012,explaining why criminalization actuallyerodes efforts to solve homelessness.That same year, Mayor Bates signed on toa US Conference of Mayors statement insupport of the USICH report. He nonethe-less championed Measure S in 2012, andhas been central to the Maio-sponsorednew legislation to further criminalizeBerkeley’s homeless people.”

It ought to be good news, but cities andpoliticians who see their own laws as per-fectly fair or even beneficial can continue touse them. Berkeley Councilmember LoriDroste, for instance, thinks that arrestingpeople gets them into recovery programs.Berkeley’s council majority thinks there areenough shelter beds, lot of services, andthat police contact is just another kind ofoutreach. In Santa Cruz, people who laydown to sleep get ticketed.

It’s a DOJ versus BID smackdown. It’sthe property-based Business ImprovementDistricts nationwide who want aDisneyland effect for their commercialdistricts and the city councils who supportthem will keep facing off against theDepartment of Justice’s quavering state-ment of interest about cruel and unusualpunishment. If you’re on the street, youknow who’s winning.

by Carol Denney

Nine homeless individuals repre-sented by the law office of CarolA. Sobel of Santa Monica just

whipped the City of Los Angeles in court.It’s a narrow ruling, and it’s not a unani-mous ruling, but it helps protect homelessand poor people’s property, including“medications, legal documents, familyphotographs, and bicycles that are leftmomentarily unattended in violation of amunicipal ordinance.”

The City of Berkeley did this recently topeople in Martin Luther King Jr. CivicCenter Park. It took only 20 minutes for thepolice to decide that the personal propertyof someone who was at a nearby appoint-ment was abandoned and to haul it away.

The severity of the loss can be incalcula-ble for someone whose eviction whittlesdown their belongings to the smallest, mostprecious things they have: the tools they useto find work, the papers they need to estab-lish eligibility or the photographs that con-nect them to family.

Some, but not all, of the belongingswere recovered and returned to their own-ers, but the practice of sweeping up unat-tended personal belongings as though theywere trash has a familiar ring in Berkeley.In the late 1980s, then-mayor (and nowstate senator) Loni Hancock sent trashcompactors up to People’s Park for

sweeps of homeless people’s belongingsfor instant destruction.

The Department of Justice’s recent state-ment of interest saying laws against invol-untary human behavior are cruel and unusu-al punishment may have little legal weightyet in a courtroom, but this decision by theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals is a clearrebuke to the City of Los Angeles for trash-ing the unattended possessions of poor andhomeless people and has some modest, ifnarrow, legal heft.

Los Angeles is enjoined, or prohibited,from “confiscating and summarilydestroying unabandoned property in SkidRow” and the court ruling cites the Fourthand 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment to theConstitution seems clear on this matter:

“The right of the people to be secure intheir persons, houses, papers, and effects,against unreasonable searches andseizures, shall not be violated, and noWarrants shall issue, but upon probablecause, supported by Oath or affirmation,and particularly describing the place tobe searched, and the persons or things tobe seized.”

Section 1 of the FourteenthAmendment also seems clear:

“No state shall make or enforce anylaw which shall abridge the privileges orimmunities of citizens of the United

States; nor shall any state deprive anyperson of life, liberty, or property, withoutdue process of law; nor deny to any per-son within its jurisdiction the equal pro-tection of the laws.”

This is one of the most litigated partsof the Constitution, but the district courtstates, “We conclude that the Fourth andFourteenth Amendments protect homelesspersons from government seizure andsummary destruction of their unaban-doned, but momentarily unattended, per-sonal property.”

City officials who insist that propertyconfiscation is simply part of their obliga-tion to maintain public health and safetycan, according to the court, fulfill that mis-sion without declaring, as Los Angelesattempted to declare, “that the unattendedproperty of homeless persons is uniquelybeyond the reach of the Constitution, sothat the government may seize and destroywith impunity the worldly possessions of avulnerable group in our society.”

Heaven knows that cities like Berkeley,which is apparently still bent on having alaw criminalizing having more than twosquare feet of property in one’s possessionat any given time for more than an hour,will continue to try to find creative ways tolegally skirt the Fourth and FourteenthAmendments of the Constitution. The oddmyopia that even self-proclaimed progres-

sive cities have regarding their own uncon-stitutional laws seems as yet to have no endand no cure.

Most of us with an eye on the streetsknow that when police officers (or the“ambassadors”) think nobody is watching,constitutional protections are no match forthe well-funded, politically supported, andheavily marketed power of the police, withlayers of overlapping jurisdictions capableof destroying the lives of vulnerable peopleas a matter of policy if so instructed by citycouncils either overtly or througheuphemism and implication.

Many of the destructive sweeps we seein the Bay Area and nationally are consid-ered a routine matter of sanitation bycities which have, in many cases, stoppedconsidering homeless people’s rights aseven a modest factor in their equation.

Without the drought, for instance,homeless people in many cities would stillfind themselves and all their belongingsthoroughly power-hosed each morning, apractice wistfully missed by the Block byBlock patrols and property owners whodefended it as keeping the streets clean.

But at least a little Constitutional lightpeeps in the window now and then, illu-minating the need for practical, ratherthan criminal, approaches to a housingcrisis that affects us all.

Justice Department CallsBoise Laws ‘Cruel andUnusual Punishment’ “Everyone has the right to…” suffer from poverty on the streets. Robert Terrell photo

Court to Los Angeles: ‘Stop Destroying Homeless Belongings’

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 5

by Kamran Abri

The possibilities for homeless indi-viduals entering the emergencymedical system in this country are

extremely limited, to the point that anyonewho works in the arena of medical ser-vices for the underserved is familiar withthe predictable difficulties.

Time and time again, we hear stories ofpeople on the streets needing medical ser-vices being turned away from emergencydepartments; being “dumped” onto countyhospitals by private entities; or being forcedto use hospital emergency rooms as theironly source of medical care, whether forsignificant or routine medical needs.

What we see as a result of these trendsis the overburdening of county-basedemergency departments, the hemorrhag-ing of hospital funds, and poor care of thelow-income and homeless populationsthat need the care the most. This begs animportant question: are emergency depart-ments, and our laws regarding the treatmentof uninsured patients in them, a problem?My belief is that the systemic and economicissues of emergency rooms are not theproblem. Instead, they are just the symp-toms of a medical system that is still notdoing enough.

When it comes to patient treatment in anemergency room, the law of the land is theEmergency Medical Treatment and ActiveLabor Act, or EMTALA. Hospitals underEMTALA (i.e., any hospital with an emer-gency department that accepts Medicarepayments) are obligated to meet three crite-ria. First, any person requesting emergencycare must at least be medically screened,regardless of financial or insurance status.Second, should an emergency departmentdecide that the individual warrants furthertreatment, they are required to treat thatindividual until the issue is resolved or thepatient is stabilized. Third, hospitals musttransfer patients to a different, more capable

facility should they feel they cannot meetthe patient’s health needs.

To violate EMTALA means that a hos-pital risks losing the privilege to be reim-bursed by the federal government viaMedicare. These are the very criteria thatmake emergency rooms the only viablemedical option for many homeless anduninsured persons.

Now, EMTALA and its principles bythemselves seem like a logical, compas-sionate solution to people having sudden,isolated medical events and requiring emer-gency medical attention. However, ourproblems arise when we combine this set oflaws with a health system designed to shutthe uninsured out of primary care for rou-tine needs, forcing them to go to the emer-gency rooms. These individuals do not justexperience a single, extreme medical eventthat can be resolved through emergencyintervention. They have a high number ofchronic medical needs as well.

The emergency room visit lands theuninsured individual with a huge bill thatthey likely cannot pay, thus losing thehospital money, for a condition that couldhave potentially been addressed monthsearlier before escalating into a seriousmedical issue. On the surface, it mayappear that the policies surrounding emer-gency departments and EMTALA are theissues, but the root of the problem lieswithin our system of insurance and cover-age for the underserved.

But surely these issues have beenaddressed by Obamacare? For many, yes.They are now able to afford basic medicalcare through government-subsidized plansand through expanded Medicaid, with esti-mates of the newly covered hovering atover 16 million people. That is 16 millionpeople who now have access to primarymedical care, and who are also able toaccess emergency services and actually payemergency departments for those services.

The caveat to this success story is theremaining 32 million uninsured Americanswho continue to rely on the criteria laiddown by EMTALA as a major outlet formedical care. While the system haschanged, there are still many, many peoplewho rely on emergency departments astheir sole access point to healthcare, whichsimply should not be happening.

There are many potential solutions tothese problems: increased social and finan-cial counseling services at hospitals,changes to the legal language of EMTALA,making Medicare reimbursement to privatehospitals contingent upon their acceptanceof Medicaid plans, etc. We are also stilllearning about the effect of the 2010 health-care reform on emergency departments, andmany unknowns remain.

One of the biggest options in terms ofsolutions is universal healthcare — a modelthat has proven effective in many flavors incountries like Canada, Britain, Taiwan, andSweden. This is the only way that we can

truly close the gap and end our overrelianceon emergency care general as a substandardsubstitute for comprehensive medical care,closing the gap for the homeless and low-income populations of this country.

However, whatever the solution maybe, we cannot ignore this fact: we are cur-rently forcing people to rely on a systemof emergency medicine to meet medicalneeds that the primary care system hasbeen designed to handle. This is a failureof our medical institutions to the unin-sured and underserved, and must beaddressed as a matter of principle and theachievement of health equality.

*********

Sources:Kahntroff J, Watson R. “Refusal of

Emergency Care and Patient Dumping.” AMAJournal of Ethics 11.1 (2009): 49-53.

D’Amore J. “The Epidemiology of theHomeless Population and Its Impact on anUrban Emergency Department.” AcademicEmergency Medicine 8.11 (2001): 1051-055.

Salit, SA, EM Kuhn, and AJ Hartz.“Hospitalization Costs Associated withHomelessness in New York City.” New EnglandJournal of Medicine 338.24 (1998): 1734-740.

Vila-Rodriguez, F, Et Al. “The HotelStudy: Multimorbidity in a CommunitySample Living in Marginal Housing.”American Journal of Psychiatry 170.12(2013): 1413-422.

“HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGEAND THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.”ASPE.HHS.gov. US Department of Health andHuman Services, 5 May 2015.

Barriers to Healthcare for the Homeless Community

Many homeless people have no other recourse but to seek medical care at the emergency rooms of county hospitals.

#HumanizeNotMilitarizeResponses and Resistance to MilitarismFROM FERGUSON TO GAZA, militarism directly impacts all of our lives. The American FriendsService Committee’s new poster art exhibit examines the effects of militarism in both foreign and domestic policy, and highlights alternatives and positive nonviolent solutions. View the exhibit by appointment, or at one of the public events on September 9 and 26. Contact: Stephen McNeil, 415-565-0201 ext 12 or smcneil@afsc.org.

September 1-15The Flight Deck1540 Broadway, Oakland (near 12th or 19th St. BART)

September 16-30The Eric Quezada Center 518 Valencia Street San Francisco (near 16th street Mission BART)

Wednesday, September 9, 6:30 pmScreening of Chicago Confessional, a film about Chicago police torture with filmmaker Bryan Gibel, in discussion with Gerald Smith of the Oscar Grant CommitteeFlight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland

Special Closing Event: September 26, 6:30 pmUrban Shield: What’s Next? Presentations and discussion518 Valencia Street San Francisco

Art by Annie Banks; words by Mutope Duguma, imprisoned atPelican Bay State Prison SHU

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T6

by Jess Clarke

Imagine a government where votingpower is in direct proportion to thevalue of the property one owns, where

majority ownership gives one the right toappoint the leaders, and where small busi-nesses and homeowners don’t have avoice. Imagine a place where people with-out homes are exiled from the community.

You might think this is still a dystopiato come (after a few more Supreme Courtdecisions granting corporations ever morerights as persons), but unfortunately, it’salready a reality in hundreds of citiesacross the United States in so-calledBusiness Improvement Districts (BIDs).

BIDs are private corporations governedby business property owners in a particu-lar geographical region. They are char-tered by state law and approved by localjurisdictions where they take over manyfunctions once served by local govern-ment. Better street cleaning, trashremoval, street signage, streetscapeimprovements, and other maintenancetasks are part of the sales pitch that BIDsmake to convince city officials to givethem taxing power over commercial prop-erty within a district.

BIDs are also typically empowered tohire poorly trained and poorly paid securi-ty guards to push undesirable people outof the area — supposedly the criminal ele-ment, but more often poor and homelesspeople who big business has decidedaren’t good customers.

Marcus Harris, director of Cities ofRefuge in Denver, Colorado, characterizesthe approach of BIDs: “According to theBusiness Improvement District, quality oflife is more access to Macy’s and all theseother shops without having to step aroundpeople and deal with human suffering.”

The creation of the improvement dis-tricts gives the big businesses that alreadydominate local politics through theChambers of Commerce and politicaldonations another mechanism for chang-ing city policies to reflect their interests.

Homeless people are the first to feelthe brunt of these privatization and gentri-fication initiatives, but low-income ten-ants soon discover that they too are beingpushed out of these areas.

While incumbent homeowners may bethe beneficiary of a brief boom in thevalue of their homes, new families tryingto move from apartments to houses arelikely to be driven out into the periphery,

further degrading the diversity of ourcommunities.

“We are back to the days of Jim Crowlaws and Anti-Okie laws,” says LisaMarie Alatorre of the San FranciscoCoalition on Homelessness. “The BIDsare promoting discriminatory policingpractices to simply remove peopledeemed unwanted from certain parts oftown.”

ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF BUSINESS

IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS

The first significant governance byBusiness Improvement Districts in theUnited States came in the wake of thegovernmental collapse in New York Cityin the 1970s. Grand Central Station andother key mercantile hubs were given overto privatized governance.

BIDs are granted the power to assesscommercial property owners within a dis-trict with what amounts to a real estatetax, collected on their behalf by the localgovernment. In some cases, they take onthe land use planning and capital invest-ments typical of government.

In California, a BID can be createdwith the support of 51 percent of the busi-ness taxpayers in a district, but votingpower is based on the tax paid, not thenumber of businesses in the district.

Even though they are privately man-aged entities, BIDs control millions ofdollars of public tax revenues and expen-ditures, ranging from $18,000 at the low-est end to over $27 million for the SanFrancisco Tourism Improvement District.California leads the country in BIDs, withalmost 250 districts in downtown and sub-urban areas throughout the state.

While most BIDs file some sort ofreport to their city council once a year,research into the actual practice showsthat councils are uncritical of plans creat-ed by the business-led board of the privateBID and rarely if ever overrule them.

BIDs are quickly spreading from stateto state and laying the groundwork forever more direct corporate governance atthe municipal level.

According to a 2011 report based on acensus conducted by the InternationalDowntown Association and professorsCarol Becker and Seth Grossman, therewere over 1000 BIDs in the United Statesand their numbers are growing rapidly.

Grossman, the founder and director ofthe Rutgers’ Institute of Business DistrictManagement, told me he sees businessdistricts as improving governmentaccountability by shifting the taxing andspending decisions about a neighborhoodto a level closer to those who have a stakein it — the business owners. They act, ineffect, as a political action group.

“Prior to the ‘50 and ‘60s, theChamber of Commerce was a politicalorganization,” he said. “In fact, almost allelected officials were put forth by theChamber of Commerce. Business andgovernment were almost hand-in-glove,way more than it is now. Business people,because of suburbia, began to move out ofthe urban areas... and they couldn’t voteand they couldn’t run for office. So theylost their political power in town.”

‘YOU’RE EITHER CUSTOMER OR

CONTAGION’In San Francisco, Oakland and

Berkeley, the BIDs that control and patrolthe downtown city centers have aggres-sive anti-homeless policies enforced in ajoint effort with local police departments.

The City of Berkeley’s harassment ofhomeless people hit new lows in March2015 when “ambassadors” employed bythe Downtown Berkeley Association(DBA) were caught on video assaultinghomeless people as the City Councillaunched a new campaign to criminalizehomelessness. In a widely viewedYouTube video taken March 19, 2015,Berkeley ambassadors beat two homelessmen after they chased them off the mainstreet and into an alley. [See Street Spirit,April 2015.]

Grossman offers his frank opinion ofwhy BIDs aim to move homeless peopleout of the districts. “It’s a customer ser-vice district,” he said. “So they are con-cerned about customers. They don’t seethe homeless people as customers... Ifthey don’t see you as a customer you arein trouble... You are either a customer or acontagion.”

While granting that BIDs don’t repre-sent the whole population, Grossman seesthem as an improvement over briberythrough campaign contributions. “[If] allthey can do is ‘pay to play,’ then itbecomes so self-centered. They don’thave any overall community interests.They are just trying to save their own assor their business.”

Grossman sees BIDs as a way ofreconnecting business and government.“Aren’t they getting the ear of the mayoralmost the way the old chambers of com-merce did? Chambers of commerce are

One Dollar, One Vote: How Big Business Uses BIDsto Subvert Democracy and Take Over Downtowns

by Tony Robinson, Allison Sickelsand Denver Homeless Out Loud

The Downtown DenverPartnership’s (DDP) BusinessImprovement District is a private

organization made up of downtown busi-ness owners, which plays a special rolein managing, programming and main-taining safety and cleanliness on the 16thStreet Mall.

The DDP has long advocated forincreased policing of homelessness in thedowntown area. For example, the DDPwas a lead organization pushing for anaggressive panhandling ordinance inDenver, in pushing to ban all panhan-dling in a “convention center” zonedowntown, and in pushing for the recentDenver camping ban, which illegalizes ahomeless person sheltering themselvesfrom the elements in any way.

For years, the DDP has maintained an“Ambassador” program consisting ofuniformed downtown ambassadorspatrolling up and down the 16th streetmall, helping answer the questions ofvisitors, and also keeping a close eye onwhat they perceive as unwanted or disor-derly behavior. The DDP’s annual reportnotes that the group spent $682,922 onthese kind of private “safety” enhancingactivities on the 16th Street Mall in 2014.

According to their report: “TheAmbassadors provide additional supportto the Denver Police Department byfocusing on ‘quality of life’ crimes, suchas aggressive panhandling and graffiti,while also serving as liaisons betweenstruggling citizens and social serviceagencies.”

Excerpted from CriminalizingHomelessness in Colorado.

Denver BIDs Push for SleepingBans and Anti-Panhandling Laws

“Legalize Sleep.” WRAP protests the Union Square Business Improvement District on July 31, 2015. Janny Castillo photo

The International Downtown Association is coming to San Franciscofrom Sept 30 to 0ctober 2 to spread the gospel of privatizing gover-nance worldwide. Join the Western Regional Advocacy Project andother community organizations to learn more about BusinessImprovement districts at a panel discussion.

Panel DiscussionOctober 1, 2015, 2 p.m.St Anthony Foundation121 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco

International Downtown Association

See Big Business and BIDs page 7

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 7

flaccid, but BIDs are exerting more andmore political power. They are a publicprivate-partnership.”

BIDS LEAD ANTI-POOR CAMPAIGNS

The Downtown Berkeley Associationhas been doing an aggressive job of orga-nizing for what they see as their collectiveinterest. In mid-March, a package of anti-homeless ordinances backed by the DBAwent before the City Council in an under-handed effort to revive the core of the so-called “sit-lie” law that Berkeley commu-nity organizations convinced voters toreject just two years earlier.

In that campaign, John Caner, CEO ofthe DBA, was named in a complaint,eventually sustained by the Fair PoliticalPractices Commission, for campaignfinance violations that included paying$5,530 in $100 and $50 cash payments tohomeless and formerly homeless “pollworkers” and deceiving them into handingout slate cards urging a vote for the mea-sure that would have criminalized them.

Caner’s latest attempt to influence theBerkeley City Council to adopt a series ofnew anti-poor laws has been delayed thusfar by street protests and interventions bylocal faith leaders and other civil rightsadvocates. But BIDs across the state aremaintaining constant pressure to deprivehomeless people of human and civil rights.

In Los Angeles, years of successful

legal challenges brought by communityorganizations such as the Los AngelesCommunity Action Network (LACAN)and legal groups like the ACLU over-turned five different sleeping bans andproperty seizure laws as unconstitutional.

But in June 2015, the L.A. CityCouncil once again passed a set of anti-poor laws targeting homeless people.

And the LAPD is back to business asusual, making sweeps in the DowntownIndustrial District Business ImprovementDistrict (which is run by the Central CityEast Association, or CCEA).

CCEA is just one of the many businesslobbying groups that is helping itself tolocal taxing authority in Los Angeles,which now boasts nine BIDs in just thedowntown area. Three of them overlap orabut the Skid Row area.

According to Curbed, a news website,LAPD Sergeant Robert Bean told home-less people as he was rousting them,“People pay a lot now to live here, theyexpect services from the city.” And, ofcourse, the service they are looking for isdriving the homeless out of their rapidlygentrifying neighborhoods.

Taking people’s bedrolls, shoppingcarts, and tents is only the tip of the icebergwhen it comes to police actions. LACANreported in their 2010 study of increasedpolice presence in Skid Row that the so-called Safer Streets initiative — intense“Broken Windows” street enforcement ofminor infractions like vagrancy, drinking,

drug possession, etc. — leads to a fargreater number of encounters betweenhomeless people and police. An astonishing54 percent of 200 homeless residents ofdowntown Los Angeles reported beingarrested in the previous year.

And with increased police contactcomes the predictable excessive use offorce that is now widely reported acrossthe country. For example, in March 2015,the LAPD killed a homeless man in SkidRow — recorded on video tape — whenthey pursued him into his tent, pulled himout of it and shot him dead in front ofnumerous onlookers and several cameras.

Two months later, on May 5, the policekilled another man in Venice who com-mitted the crime of running from policewhile homeless.

While Los Angeles Police ChiefCharlie Beck and Mayor Eric Garcettimake apologetic gestures in public, theL.A. city government banded togetherwith others in the League of Cities toattack the Homeless Bill of Rights andRight to Rest legislation in the state legis-lature and coordinates their efforts withthe Chamber of Commerce.

RIGHT TO REST BLOCKED BY LEAGUE

OF CITIES AND BUSINESS GROUPS

In California, Colorado, and Oregon,where members of the Western RegionalAdvocacy Project (WRAP) have beenrunning a campaign to win a “Right toRest” bill in state legislatures, BIDs work-ing through the California DowntownAssociation and the business-dominated

League of Cities associations worked hardto block the legislation.

One of the more absurd arguments putforward by the California League of Citieswarns that ensuring that the Bill of Rightsapplies to homeless and poor peoplemight result in a homeless person claim-ing protection under the SecondAmendment to defend their tent by forceof arms. (This argument was made in aletter to the bill’s sponsor, State SenatorCarol Liu).

In a just society, we should not needenabling legislation to extend the Bill ofRights to poor and homeless people. Weshould all be protected by all constitution-al requirements. In a court case in Boise,Idaho, even the Obama administration’sDepartment of Justice has signed on to abrief stating that the arrests of homelesspeople for sleeping were prohibited underthe 8th Amendment ban on “cruel andunusual punishment.”

Community groups continue to fight inthe courts, the legislature and in thestreets. This month, WRAP and othergroups are taking the fight to the businesscommunity at the next meeting of theInternational Downtown Association at amajor annual conference in San Francisco,September 30 to October 2. (See theaccompanying box.)

Paul Boden, executive director ofWRAP, vows to take the fight to theBIDs. “This is about commercializing andapplying neoliberal economics to ourcommunities and the only way to stop thatis to say, ‘hell no, we are fighting back.’”

by Carol Denney

Are you paying attention tohousing and planning issues?You probably are, or youwouldn’t have picked up this

publication in the first place. About 75people who do care piled into theLandmarks Preservation Commission tostop the latest jumbo scoop of brassy lux-ury housing from being poured on top of aBerkeley city landmark on August 13,2015. It was both thrilling and sad.

They were there out of a deep concernover a proposed mixed-use developmentwith an 18-story luxury tower, 302 resi-dential units and commercial space on theground floor. Part of the project would bedeveloped on a city landmark site thatincludes the historic Hotel Shattuck Plaza.The development at 2211 Harold Waywould be called The Residences.

As a community, we looked brilliant.Engineers, architects, a former mayor, for-mer landmarks preservation commission-ers, commissioners from other communitycommissions, respected authors, peoplewho had lengthy backgrounds in historicpreservation, and citizens with decades ofcivic involvement made an impressivecase for denying developers a projectwhich distorts almost every planningparameter in existence.

The proposed project would have nolow-income housing. Critics contend itwould deface the original landmark site,cast shadows in the downtown area andblock views of other landmarks, createwind tunnels and inflate rents. The uglytower would no longer commune with the

other landmark buildings nearby in anymeaningful way.

It all adds up to 18 stories of profit forthe well-connected handful of consultantsand developers who can count on SiliconValley techsters to fill even wildly over-priced condos and penthouses, even if thedisplaced cinemas are never replaced.

The beautiful souls who read throughthe zoning application materials, applicantstatement, project plans, draft historic con-text report, geotechnical feasibility report,environmental site assessments, stormwa-ter report, LEED checklist, etc., left themeeting collectively stunned after havingspent many months diligently documentingthe obvious flaws in the proposal and theeven more obvious tricks that were playedupon the process to fast-track matters andkeep investors’ minds at ease.

This is how homelessness happens.Nobody in the room, probably not eventhe project’s threadbare handful of sup-porters, really buys the hype about insane-ly tall buildings somehow saving thewhales or solving the housing crisis.

Insanely tall buildings full of luxuryhousing fill up with insanely wealthy peo-ple who rarely seem to wonder why a townwhich once had a thriving black communitynow looks like a white country club.

The project opponents are not entirelyout of ideas to stop the project. The politi-cians who stacked the commission withpeople carefully instructed not to stand inthe way of this project — no matter howsilly it looks — can still come to theirsenses. What was referred to as “architec-tural poison” by one speaker doesn’t have

to be permanently visited on this or anyother town.

Berkeley, like other cities in the denselypacked Bay Area, doesn’t have any moresquare footage to squander on the wealthyif it ever wants to help the rest of us get outof the rain. Rich people may sprout expo-nentially out of the tech world or sail in onpersonal jets from foreign lands, but some-body’s got to drive their taxis, teach their

kids and pump their coffee drinks. Square footage is finite, and we hit the

breaking point on living in Modesto whiletrying to work in San Francisco a longtime ago. We need planning that respectsour architectural heritage, our cultural her-itage, our community needs, and politi-cians who are willing to play fair insteadof short-circuit our democracy for person-al political gain.

This Is How HomelessnessHappens in BerkeleyNobody really buys the hype about insanely tallbuildings somehow saving the whales or solving thehousing crisis. Insanely tall buildings full of luxuryhousing fill up with insanely wealthy people.

“The Housing Circle of Life.” Art by Carol Denney

Big Business and BIDs Subvert Democracyfrom page 6

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T8

With her husband, the theologian andpeace activist Jim Douglass, Shelley firstbecame deeply involved in the antiwarmovement of the 1960s, when she andJim committed civil disobedience inprotest of U.S. war crimes in Vietnam.

From the very beginning, she wasequally drawn to the Catholic Workervision of resisting not only the violence ofwar, but also the violence of poverty andhunger and homelessness. She devotedmost of her waking hours to antiwar orga-nizing in the 1960s, and to anti-nuclearactivism in the 1970s and 1980s, yet shekept alive the hope of one day offeringsanctuary to poor and homeless people.

CONFRONTING SEXISM, RACISM AND

THE VIOLENCE OF POVERTY

Her sense of nonviolence extendedbeyond antiwar actions because she clear-ly saw the connections between militarismand the other deeply entrenched forms ofviolence in American life. She wrote, “Webelieve that violence must be confrontedon all levels — in sexism, racism, eco-nomic injustice, exploitation of the land.”

Her deepening commitment to nonvio-lence would lead her to create a house ofhospitality for homeless families inAlabama, organize against the death penal-ty, and travel to Iraq to bring medicine tochildren victimized by U.S. sanctions.

The Pacific Life Community and theGround Zero Center for NonviolentAction were founded by a small group ofactivists who were still recovering fromexhaustion and burn-out after years ofresistance to the Vietnam War. As theprice of their peace activism, they hadendured lengthy jail sentences, separa-tions from families, and intensely difficultstruggles that led some to despair.

They were still committed to peacemak-ing, but for these activists, embracing a newpolitical struggle against nuclear weaponsmeant something far more personal thansimply using the methods of Gandhi andKing to build a movement. It meantembracing nonviolence as a way of life, try-ing to make peace on both the outer politi-cal level and in their inner personal lives.

Shelley and Jim soon moved next to theBangor Naval Base near Seattle, where theylived next door to hundreds of nuclear war-heads with the explosive power of thou-sands of Hiroshima bombs. They devotedmany years of their lives to resisting theNavy’s fleet of Trident nuclear submarines,and their repeated acts of civil disobedienceoften resulted in months-long jail sentences.

THE RICH GET RICHER

Although the anti-nuclear movement ofthe 1970s and 1980s rarely made the con-nection between militarism and the eco-nomic injustice faced by poor people, low-wage workers, and homeless and hungrypeople in the inner city, Shelley Douglassrepeatedly made those connections in thepages of the Ground Zero newspaper.

She wrote: “Anyone with eyes to seeand ears to hear is well aware that weignore the poor and suffering, while giv-ing admiration to those who have wealthand power. In our government the samevalues apply: taxes are cut for the rich;assistance programs are cut from the poor.The rich are enabled to get richer, thepoor are forced to get poorer.”

Soon, her voice became even morepassionate and outraged: “The destructionof creation and its creatures is done in thename of profit, convenience, wealth. Thetruth is that capitalism is poison, and weare its victims. Dorothy Day was quiteclear and prophetic when she said that thefault lies in ‘this filthy, rotten system.’”

In “Truth (and) Consequences,” an arti-

cle from the spring of 1990, Shelley told thereaders of Ground Zero that her path ofnonviolence had led to one of the poorestneighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama.There, she was able to fulfill her desire tocreate a haven for poor families, a CatholicWorker community called Mary’s House.

She lived there with low-income fami-lies deprived of housing and the necessitiesof life by an economic system that hasabandoned millions of people to poverty.

Douglass writes about the desperationand hardships faced by her neighbors in aregular column for Pax Christi USA, aprominent peace and justice organization.Jim and Shelley Douglass were recipientsof the Pax Christi USA Teacher of PeaceAward in 1994, an annual award given tothe person who gives outstanding witness tothe peace teachings of the church.

In her Pax Christi column, Shelleydescribes the poverty, racism and depriva-tion she sees on the streets in Ensley, oneof Birmingham’s poorest neighborhoods.“Ensley is full of poor and forgotten folks.Our city schools are wretched, our streetsare cracking and decaying, we haveblocks of boarded-up stores...”

The Ensley area never recovered fromthe exodus of Birmingham’s steel industryyears ago, and now is impoverished, dete-riorating and abandoned. The people ofEnsley are “ignored or written off,” shewrites, and many people avoid the area asa dangerous, high-crime district. “I haveknown parents who wouldn’t allow theirchildren to come for a work-day at Mary’sHouse, fearing for their safety.”

THE NEW JIM CROW

Yet Jim and Shelley Douglass have cho-sen to live in the poor part of the city formore than 20 years. There are signs of greathope alongside signs of brokenness anddespair on the same streets; and it has beenan eye-opening experience to see the extentof racism and poverty in present-dayBirmingham, a city that experienced someof the worst racial violence in the nation formore than 100 years after the Civil War.

Shelley writes about the staggeringextent of injustice and racism that beganwith slavery and continues to the present.

“In a conspiracy of silence, we ignorethe fact that this country, and especiallythis state, is built on centuries of oppres-sion and exploitation of people with blackand brown skin who were kidnapped fromtheir homes and forced to labor as animalsto benefit white landowners. We ignore theyears of de facto slavery that followedEmancipation; we ignore the structures ofracism that continue to define our society,and the way in which people of color andpoor people generally are disenfranchisedand forced into a shadow caste by voting

restrictions and the prison/parole system.”Her reflections on the prison/parole

system have been sharpened recently byMichelle Alexander’s book, The New JimCrow: Mass Incarceration in the Age ofColorblindness. In her interview withStreet Spirit, Douglass said that alongwith the disenfranchisement of black vot-ers and other forms of ongoing discrimi-nation, widespread imprisonment isanother tool of racial oppression.

Shelley Douglass said, “The New JimCrow makes the argument that it’s a con-scious attempt or a semiconscious attemptto keep black people in their place — thesame place that white people and thepower structure have been trying to keepthem in for hundreds of years.”

OPPOSING THE DEATH PENALTY

Seeking a nonviolent response to theinequities of the prison system, Shelleybecame involved in opposing the deathpenalty. She also began visiting LeroyWhite, a prisoner on Alabama’s death rowin the Holman Correctional Facility.

After years of visiting Leroy White andgrowing closer to him, Jim and Shelleywere at his side on his last day on earth, ashe was led to a small concrete-blockbuilding where they witnessed his execu-tion by lethal injection on Jan. 13, 2011.

In her Street Spirit interview, Shelleygives a heartbreaking account of whathappens when the state uses its power tomurder a prisoner in cold blood. Askedwhat she thinks of executions after havingpersonally witnessed this death, Shelleysaid, “I think they’re brutal and barbaricand cruel and inhumane.”

She once wrote about the paradox ofnonviolence: “Nonviolence is a way thatoften seems to lose when it is in fact win-ning.” That may be the best way toexplain the many signs of hope and com-passion that took place in the very midstof the seemingly hopeless and bitter strug-gle to save Leroy White’s life.

One such sign of hope was the changeof heart by Bruce Gardner, the districtattorney who had prosecuted Leroy.Gardner renounced the death penalty in avery public way, calling executions “abarbaric, abhorrent practice” and sayingthat Leroy should not be executed.

Another sign of hope was that eventhough Leroy was convicted of murderinghis wife Ruby, Ruby’s side of the family —which one would have expected to stronglyfavor his execution — showed the depth oftheir mercy by advocating clemency.

Another sign was the compassionshown by Jim and Shelley Douglass whovisited Leroy on death row for many yearsand were friends until the end, stayingwith him all day in his last week in prison.

A HERO OF NONVIOLENCE

Above all, there was the unforgettablelove shown by La Tonya, the daughter ofLeroy and Ruby White. La Tonya lost hermother and rightfully blamed her fatherfor the murder. She might have harboredresentment forever; yet she somehowfound a way to forgive Leroy, and formeda beautiful, loving relationship with him.Her love and forgiveness were instrumen-tal in inspiring Ruby’s family to also for-give Leroy, and ask for clemency.

If there has ever been a hero of nonvio-lence, La Tonya is it.

On the last day, La Tonya repeatedlycalled Alabama’s governor to spare herfather’s life, but he refused to grantclemency. At the very final moment, theU.S. Supreme Court intervened anddelayed the execution for two hours whileLeroy White was strapped to the gurney.Hope arose again for one brief moment,only to be dashed by the Supreme Court’srefusal to spare this man’s life.

Sometimes nonviolence does not win.Sometimes nonviolence means to comfortthe dying and mourn the dead.

It is so very hard to comprehend thisstory. Does nonviolence mean standing insupport of a man subjected to a terriblemiscarriage of justice at almost every levelof the criminal justice system, a man put todeath in a horrible way? Or does nonvio-lence mean standing in solidarity withLeroy’s wife Ruby, a defenseless womanand mother who was murdered?

And, in the end, is there any hope at allin this story of two terribly sad deaths?

If you read the interview with ShelleyDouglass carefully, I believe you’ll see thatLa Tonya got it right. No one on earth suf-fered the loss of her mother more piercinglythan La Tonya. And no one on earth for-gave Leroy more deeply than La Tonya.

Somehow, she found the depth of loveto respond to Leroy’s desire to be herfather. She built a relationship with himeven behind prison walls. She became aloving daughter. On his last day on earth,La Tonya was fighting against all the oddsto save her father’s life.

I believe there is great hope in thisstory. The hope resides in La Tonya. Shedemonstrated at a nearly inconceivabledepth how we may love those who havewronged us. She showed us how we canboth love the victim of violence — hermother — and yet find it in our hearts toforgive the one who has taken a life.

On Shelley Douglass’s lifelong path ofnonviolence and peacemaking, she mayhave discovered the most beautiful exampleof nonviolence and love from the daughterof a man imprisoned on death row.

This photo was taken two hours before Leroy White was led away to be executed. La Tonya is second from left in the frontrow (in a black shirt), sitting next to Leroy (in a white shirt). Jim Douglass is at far left and Shelley Douglass is at far right.

Shelley Douglass:Living for Peace from page 1

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 9

Interview by Terry Messman

Street Spirit: You’ve devoted manyyears of your life to nonviolent resistanceto nuclear weapons. How did you firstbecome involved in the Ground ZeroCenter for Nonviolent Action?

Shelley Douglass: The Pacific LifeCommunity was the original group thatstarted the Trident campaign. The crucialthing about it was that the whistle wasblown on the Trident by the man that wasdesigning it, Robert Aldridge. Jim and Ihad met Bob Aldridge when we were inthe middle of the Hickham trial inHonolulu. [Jim Douglass, Jim Albertiniand Chuck Julie were on trial for an act ofcivil disobedience at Hickam Air ForceBase in protest of the Vietnam War.]

We didn’t know very much about BobAldridge until he came to visit us at ourhome in Hedley, British Columbia, severalyears later. He told us a very moving storyabout how he had spent his life designingnuclear weapons, and he and his wholefamily had made the decision that he shouldresign from his job for reasons of con-science. They had taken a tremendous cutin income. They had 10 kids, and his wifehad gone back to work, and the whole fami-ly was behind this decision.

After he told us this story, Bob wantedto know if we knew where the Trident wasgoing to be home-ported. We had nevereven heard of the Trident. He told us it wasgoing to be stationed just below the border.We were living in British Columbia then,just north of the U.S. border and the Tridentwas going to be home-ported inWashington state, just to the south.

He kind of handed it to us. You know,“Do something about this!” [laughing]And we were all burned-out activists fromthe Vietnam War. We had gone through alot of antiwar resistance, families had bro-ken up, and we had not been nonviolent toeach other. So none of us in our whole lit-tle community of friends were very anx-ious to be active again.

Spirit: Given that history of exhaus-tion and burn-out, what did it mean foryou to take up this struggle?

Douglass: We held a retreat at theVancouver School of Theology where Iwas studying, and we decided that wewould give it a try, but we would do it bycommitting ourselves to nonviolence as away of life. So we would deal with ourown sexism, our own economic privilege,our own racism — all the things that wefelt had made Trident necessary.

So we decided to make this experimentin nonviolence as a way of life, and theTrident campaign would be the politicalarm of it. But confronting our own interi-or Tridents was at least as important asthat external political resistance.

The Pacific Life Community was inter-national from the beginning, involvingactivists from Canada and the U.S., and itvery carefully tried to confront issues ofsexism and privilege and economic domi-nation as much as learning about Trident.

Spirit: What did your protests of Tridentlook like as your campaign began?

Douglass: We did all kinds of legal

demonstrations around Trident. The firstaction we did was an Independence Daygarden planting in July 1975. A few of usclimbed a fence into the Trident base andplanted a vegetable garden on the securityperimeter road, and got arrested for that.

Spirit: That was one of the very firstacts of civil disobedience against Trident?

Douglass: Yes, that was a small action.We had a whole series of events inVancouver on Trident Concern Week inNovember 1975 where the city officialsmade a statement about the Trident. Wedid a lot of public education and we had aparade through the city with the “TridentMonster.” It was this very enormoussculpture thing that people carried throughthe city. It was as long as the Trident sub-marine — two football fields long — anda long line of people carried poles with ablack flag tied to it for every one of thesubmarine’s 408 nuclear warheads.

Then in 1976, the “Trident Monster”was brought across the U.S./Canada bor-der and down to the Trident base wherewe cut the fence and walked the Monsterhome onto the base. There was a bigcrowd of people, including a couple hun-dred people who went through the fenceonto the base, including kids who werewanting to be part of it. A bunch of uswere arrested and various people went tojail for that action.

Spirit: Did cutting through the fence atthe naval base lead to a longer jail term?

Douglass: Yeah, we went to jail for thatone. I was jailed for three months for thataction because we had been on the Tridentbase. We were arrested and put on buses.When you go to jail for something like that,you don’t deny it. Rather, you tell why youdid it. I went to jail a bunch of times, butthat was my first long time in jail.

Spirit: What was it like for you to spendyour first long sentence in a jail cell?

Douglass: It was pretty amazingbecause we formed a community with thewomen we were with in the King CountyJail. There were almost a dozen of us fromthe Trident campaign who were there injail. All of our consciousness-raising thingswe did in the community spread though thejail because we wound up doing them withthe other prisoners, as much as we did themwith each other. It was very interesting.

Spirit: What kind of consciousness-raising did you do with the prisoners?

Douglass: Well, one of the main thingsthe prisoners liked was weather reports.

Spirit: Weather reports? What kind ofweather is there in jail?

Douglass: It’s an old phrase. It meanssitting in a circle and telling how you are.We would do that in the morning and theevening, and the other prisoners wanted totake part in it. It became obvious quicklythat no one had ever asked them how theywere before. We had long sessions ofweather reports in the tanks that we were inwith all the women, and we built up somecommunity there. It was pretty amazing.

Spirit: The women in jail respondedbecause someone was actually interestedin their feelings and experiences?

Douglass: Nobody had ever askedthem what they were going throughbefore. So the idea that they could sitdown and talk about what was going on intheir feelings, and share things withouthostility or judgment, was a new thing. Idon’t know where they took it, of course,after we all separated, but it was prettyamazing while it was going on.

Spirit: You and two other women fromGround Zero, Mary Grondin and KarolSchulkin, did an action on Ash Wednesdayin 1983, when you climbed the fence andwalked into the Bangor base.

Douglass: Yeah, we went over thefence right in front of the house whereJim and I lived, which is where the rail-road tracks go into the base, and then wewalked up the tracks.

Spirit: Didn’t you leave photos of thevictims of atomic bombs in Hiroshima andNagasaki all along the tracks as youwalked into the base?

Douglass: Yes, we had some signswith the pictures on them and we walkedup the tracks and prayed. We passed vari-ous people. We passed a school bus andall the kids were watching us, but weweren’t stopped until we got quite far intothe base. We didn’t reach the weaponsstorage area; that was a long ways away,but we got fairly far in.

Spirit: Eventually you were arrested,and sentenced to jail for 60 days. Whywas it worth going to jail to walk up thoserailroad tracks on Ash Wednesday?

Douglass: Well, those were the tracks.All the weapons came into the base onthose tracks. The missile motors with thesolid fuel propellant which sends the mis-siles into the air came in on those tracks.So did the White Train with the nuclearweapons. If we had walked all the way tothe end of the tracks we would have

wound up at the storage area for thenuclear weapons.

Spirit: By leaving photos of the atomicbomb victims along the tracks, were yousaying in essence that this is what hap-pens when this train reaches its destina-tion? The final destination is a holocaust?

Douglass: Right, we were trying toraise consciousness among the people onthe base. You know, in one sense they’rewell aware of what it was all about; but inanother sense, they didn’t want to thinkabout it. So it’s still important to raiseawareness about that issue.

Spirit: Were you able to use your trialto raise public awareness about thedestructive threat of nuclear weapons?

Douglass: We had a good trial. MaryKaufman, who was a lawyer and prosecutorat the Nuremberg war crime trials, came aspart of our defense. So we had three womendefendants and we had Mary Kaufman asone of our witnesses. She was very power-ful in talking about what those nuclearweapons could do and why they wereagainst international law. Mary was a veryerudite speaker. She was a person whocould put all kinds of law into very succinctparagraphs, which was good because shedidn’t have much time in court.

Spirit: There is so much historic sig-nificance in having a Nuremberg prosecu-tor testify at your trial. What did she sayabout how nuclear weapons violate inter-national law in light of the Nurembergprinciples regarding war crimes?

Douglass: She basically said that theseweapons violate international law andthat, because of the Nuremberg principles,it’s no longer a defense to say that you arepart of the military or that you are justdoing your job. She said that internationallaw is more important.

Mary said that the U.S. has signed con-ventions and treaties saying that weshould disarm and that we would not usenuclear weapons first, even thoughTrident is a first-strike weapon. And thoselaws are all higher than any national orlocal law, so if you break a law like a tres-pass law, which is what we broke, to tryand stop the greater evil from happening,you’re justified in doing that.

As a Nuremberg prosecutor, she saidshe prosecuted people who did things forNazi Germany that had the same kind ofresults that the use of a Trident weaponwould have. And were there to be such a

Walking a Lifelong Path of NonviolenceThe Street Spirit Interview with Shelley Douglass

Shelley and Jim Douglass help organize vigils for peace every week in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.

See Lifelong Path of Nonviolence page 10

People that come to us needhomes. They need jobs thatpay a decent wage. The basicsort of economic human rightsthat are recognized aroundthe world are not humanrights in the United States.

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T10

trial again, she would be prosecuting peo-ple from the Trident base for crimesagainst international law.

Spirit: Looking back at Ground Zero’syears of resistance to Trident and nuclearweapons, what were the enduring accom-plishments of that campaign?

Douglass: Well, of course, the cam-paign still goes on, so Ground Zero itselfis an enduring accomplishment. I thinkone of the major things that came out ofthat campaign is the sense that we’re allone and we’re all in this together.

The campaign was started by the per-son who designed the Trident missile. Weworked always with people on the basewho were helping us in sort of surrepti-tious ways to get our leaflets out or what-ever. There were a number of workerswho left the base, some of them in verymoving ways, because they had decidedthat they couldn’t do this any longer.

Spirit: What do you mean by sayingthat some left in “very moving ways?

Douglass: There was a guy namedDerald Thompson who was not only in theNavy, but was on a Trident submarine. Hewas a Catholic layman and one of thethings he did when they were at sea was hewould give the Catholic crew memberscommunion. The communion wafers thatwere consecrated were kept in the samesafe on the submarine as the key that wouldturn the lock that would fire the missile.

Spirit: That’s unbelievable. The cen-tral sacrament of faith kept in the samesafe with a key that could incinerate mil-lions. What impact did that have on him?

Douglass: It was a process of years ofdiscussions and prayer and thought on hispart. And one day he made the connectionthat here was the key and here was theEucharist and he couldn’t do that anymore.He resigned, left the Navy, and took a longtime to find another job. It was just verymoving to see somebody make that hugestep because of realizing the absolute con-trast between life and death.

Spirit: Yes. The keys to life and the keysto a holocaust that could end all life.

Douglass: Exactly. So, for me, thosekinds of things were actually more mov-ing than the civil disobedience, although Ilove doing civil disobedience.

Spirit: What else was of lasting signifi-cance? What was most memorable fromyour work at the Ground Zero Center?

Douglass: I think the ongoing relation-ships built with people in the county.Also, the commitment to civil disobedi-ence, and the use of international law as away of trying to call people to account.Those are all important. The campaignwas a Gandhian campaign and still is, sothe long commitment to nonviolence andto trying to listen to the other side —those are all really important things.

Spirit: What were the toughest timesor the most troubling moments during thecampaign against Trident?

Douglass: Well, the White Trainaction when everybody kind of wentbananas and went running onto the tracks.

Ground Zero was part of a communitycalled the Agape Community that stretchedfrom Amarillo, Texas, where the bombsare assembled, all along the railroad tracksto Bangor, where the bombs were put instorage. Our community had a very specif-ic way of doing actions, partly because thetrain was dangerous. Not only is a movingtrain dangerous, but that one came withvery heavily armed security who hadorders to shoot if they thought anybody

was endangering the shipment.So we had a very specific discipline

that we used in Agape Communitydemonstrations and not all of the commu-nities, especially around the Seattle area,wanted to use that discipline.

Spirit: You’re talking about the codeof conduct taught in the nonviolencetrainings that guided direct action in mostof the anti-nuclear movement?

Douglass: Right, and we had a numberof meetings with different groups whoagreed that only those trained for civil dis-obedience would sit on the tracks to stopthe train. The rest of the people would stayback out of the way and support them, butnot get in the way of the train.

We had a number of meetings wherewe thought we had hammered out a com-mon discipline that everybody could agreeto, and when that particular train came, itturned out that people had not agreed inte-riorly to the discipline. It was a very dan-gerous situation because people began torun at the train from all along the tracks.Now, imagine a train stretched out downthe tracks and a large crowd that’s run-ning toward the train. The people actuallymost at risk were the sheriff’s deputies,because they were between the train andthe crowd, and on the train were the heav-ily armed security people.

Spirit: Were you concerned that thesheriffs or demonstrators could have beenjostled into the path of the train?

Douglass: Yeah, well there were twothings that could have happened. Theywere trying to keep the crowd away fromthe train as much to protect them from theguards as from the train itself. But withthe crowd running forward and kind ofberserk, the deputies were in danger ofbeing pushed under the train. It was just avery chaotic kind of situation and one thatwe had not expected because we thoughtwe’d made an agreement.

So we thought that was a major failureon our part. We published an issue of ourGround Zero newspaper kind of self-cri-tiquing what had happened. Jim went tojail for that action and he actually pleadguilty because he was trying to help takeresponsibility for what went wrong. So heserved some jail time on that one as aresult of the guilty plea.

Spirit: These kinds of breakdowns innonviolence have taken place in many cam-paigns, even in campaigns led by Gandhiand Martin Luther King. Did Ground Zeroredouble its commitment to having clearagreements about nonviolence?

Douglass: Yeah, and we published thatissue of the paper. It was not a popularthing to do because we mail the paper outto everybody. So we were admitting inpublic that we had had this fiasco and thatwe had not done well and that not every-

one had lived up to the agreement and wehad to try to do it better the next time.

We actually worked closely with thesheriff on the next one trying to keep thedeputies safe, as well as everybody else,and we worked more closely with thesheriff than the base did [laughs]. Sowhen the next train came, it was stoppedand that’s the one shown in the video,“The Arms Race Within.”

[Editor: “The Arms Race Within,” afilm directed by Kell Kearns and shown atthe Dallas 2005 Peace Film Festival,shows Ground Zero planning for civil dis-obedience as the White Train came intothe Bangor base in February 1985. Thefilm shows hundreds vigiling and dozensbeing arrested in what the documentarydescribed as “a triumph of nonviolence.”]

Spirit: Ground Zero went on to orga-nize many other nonviolent actions, so itmay have shaken things up when peopledidn’t adhere to nonviolence, yet it didn’tmean the end of your campaign.

Douglass: Oh no, and it helped us clar-ify how to do things and what was impor-tant. It intensified the ties we had alreadybeen building in the county because peo-ple respected the fact that we said thatwas a mistake, instead of trying to pretendit went well or justify it somehow.

Spirit: What happened at the nextmajor action when activists blocked theWhite Train in February 1985?

Douglass: The train was stopped, thepeople were arrested and the discipline wasmaintained. But when that case came to

trial, people were charged with conspiracyas well as with blocking a lawfully operatedtrain. When testimony began, they discov-ered that the sheriff had been part of theconspiracy so they had to drop the conspira-cy part of the charges. [laughs] And thenpeople were acquitted.

That was, I believe, the first acquittalthat we had and nobody was convictedfor, like, 20 years after that action. Therewere no convictions after that acquittal in1985, up until about 20 years later. Theprocess is very different now, with peopleallowed to put on their defenses.

One very big exception, of course, isthe Plowshares action that five of ourfriends did at the base, which broughtheavy charges and jail time.

[Editor: On March 28, 2011, StephenKelly and Susan Crane were sentenced to15 months in prison, Lynne Greenwald tosix months, Jesuit Father Bill “Bix” Bichselto three months, and Sister AnneMontgomery to two months after a federaljury convicted them of conspiracy, trespassand destruction of government property forcutting through fences at the Trident base.]

Spirit: So for 20 years, no one wasconvicted even though you kept doingcivil disobedience at the Trident base?

Douglass: We did, yeah, and for a longtime they were not convicted. And even-tually they stopped charging.

Spirit: That’s an amazing accomplish-ment. Were charges dropped or were peo-ple found not guilty?

At Mary’s House, Jayden prepares for his first day of kindergarten. Mary’s Houseoffers a stable home for families seeking employment and permanent housing.

Shelley Douglass (at left with microphone) speaks out against the deaths of children caused by U.S. sanctions in Iraq.

from page 9

A Lifelong Path of Nonviolence

See Lifelong Path of Nonviolence page 11

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 11

Douglass: There are two things. One isthe sort of reasons the jurors gave, whichranged all over the map. One woman said,“Well, I call the police to arrest tres-passers on my beach and they didn’t do itand why would they arrest these peopleon the tracks.” Other people said, “Thesefolks (anti-nuclear protesters) shouldn’t bearrested because what they’re doing is theright thing.” It varied a lot.

Spirit: You once wrote that resistanceto nuclear weapons had to be deep enoughto address the societal causes of the armsrace, including “our system’s exploitationof people for profit, the oppression of peo-ple based on their race, age or sex.” How isthe arms race linked to economic injustice,and to racism, ageism and sexism?

Douglass: Well, the simplest way, theway we used to put it in our slideshow atthe time, was that something like six per-cent of the world’s population controlled40 percent of the world’s resources —way out of our share. And the whole pointof the arms race is to protect what wehave that really isn’t justifiably ours.

So we’re part of an empire whichclaims the right to not only rule the world,but to use the world. As long as weremain complicit with that, then to thatextent we’re complicit with weapons likethe Trident. So we were trying as much aspossible to be conscious of where wewere complicit and to withdraw our coop-eration as much as we could.

That was why we adopted very simplelifestyles and lived communally. Youknow, all the sorts of things that people dowhen they’re trying not to live heavy onthe earth, knowing that you can never betotally outside of the system. We’re allpart of that system.

Spirit: After all these years of resistanceto war, nuclear weapons and poverty, whatdoes nonviolence now mean to you?

Douglass: What it means to me is ourrecognition that we’re all one and that anyevil that we’re involved in as humanity,I’m involved in too. And also in any good,we’re all involved in that. We can make achoice in the way we live that eitherstrengthens or weakens the good or theevil. So nonviolence is about being part ofa world community by choice. Thechanges begin in us and then they spread.

So the kinds of civil disobedience wedid at the Trident base that people are stilldoing are ways of using that power of tak-ing responsibility and calling other peopleto join. We are trying to live simply andto resist as much as possible in our livesthe economic violence that goes on all thetime, and the racism that goes on.

Spirit: How is nonviolence related tolove for others and to reverence for life?

Douglass: Well, I make a big differencebetween love and like [laughs] and I under-stand love as wanting what is best for theother. That is what I think we’re called todo. That doesn’t mean we have to feelwarm and snuggly about everybody, but itdoes mean we have to make the best deci-sions we can for everybody’s welfare.

It’s the same kind of underlying faiththat we are all one — however unlikelythat may seem to us at any point — andwe have to recognize that, whether or notwe’re feeling it at a particular time.

Nonviolence is reverence for life.Wanting the best for the other personimplies that we hold them in reverence.

We’re in the Catholic church now —however much we disagree with parts of it— and one of the most basic teachings inthat church and all Christian churches isthat human beings are created in the image

of God. Therefore, just because we’re aliveand human, we’re sacred and to be respect-ed. We try and do that as much as we can.To me, it means not using more than ourfair share of resources, sharing what wehave, trying to work for peace.

STARTING THE CATHOLIC WORKER

Spirit: Do you recall what led you tobecome involved with the CatholicWorker, and to work with poor people?

Douglass: Well, I think of the quote,“When I was hungry you fed me.” [“For Iwas hungry and you gave me somethingto eat, I was thirsty and you gave mesomething to drink, I was a stranger andyou invited me in.” — Matthew 25:35]

When I was a kid, I came from a CIAfamily, and we lived overseas a good partof my growing-up years. At one point, weswitched churches with every country, sowe always went where they spoke Englishand they were always different denomina-tions. [laughs] My mom and dad gave methe scriptures and said you should read thisand do what it says and you’ll be OK, what-ever church you go to. Being a literalist anda kid, I read it and I couldn’t figure out whywe weren’t doing what Jesus said, whichwas to share what we had with poor peopleand to feed the hungry, clothe the naked,visit the prisoner and all of that.

I spent a good part of my childhoodtrying to figure that out with my mom. Itwasn’t until I ran into the CatholicWorker, when I became a Catholic in col-lege, that I realized there were other peo-ple who thought that Jesus meant what hesaid. So for me, the initial inspiration wasreading these things in the scripture andbeing told by my parents, who worked forthe CIA, that I should be doing them, andthen finding later on that other peoplethought that and actually did do it.

Spirit: In writing about economic jus-tice, you have written about the Biblicalteaching that we cannot simultaneouslylove both God and money.

Douglass: You have a choice about thelove of God and the love of money. Youcan keep what you have for yourself or youcan share it with other people. I think whichone you do has a lot to do with what you’reserving or who you’re serving.

Spirit: The whole U.S. economy isbased on accumulating money and hold-ing it tight, while the Catholic Worker isbased on sharing with others. It’s the mir-ror opposite of capitalism in that way.

Douglass: In the Catholic Worker, thewhole point is to share what we have with

other people, but also to help people whodon’t live in the Catholic Worker sharewhat they have. At Mary’s House, I’m theonly person who lives there to run it, butthere’s a huge community of people fromall over the country who help keep itgoing because they share some of theirsubstance to pay our bills, to buy diapers,to do whatever. And in my understanding,that’s how God supports something.

If what you’re doing is in the context ofGod’s will, then you are supported some-how. That’s a promise from scripture too.But it isn’t like a bag of gold pieces arrivesin your lap from an angel. Instead, you finda check in the mail from somebody inSeattle or somebody down the street inBirmingham. That’s how it arrives.

Spirit: In his interview, Jim said thatyou had felt a desire to start a CatholicWorker for many, many years?

Douglass: Yes. I lived in Casa Maria inMilwaukee for three or four months in1970, and for me that was kind of an eye-opening experience. Casa Maria is one ofthe bigger Catholic Workers and was veryactive then in resistance to the VietnamWar and running a soup kitchen where wefed a couple of hundred people a day. It putout a very good paper, and offered hospital-ity to families in three or four houses.

So that was kind of a transformationalsort of thing for me. I’d always read aboutthe Worker up to that point, but I hadnever experienced it. I always thoughtthat was something I would really feelcalled to do, but when you’re doing resis-tance and going to jail all the time, it’s notsomething you can do at the same time.

Spirit: Can you describe how you wereinfluenced by Dorothy Day, the founder ofthe Catholic Worker movement?

Douglass: Sure. The first effect waswhen I was a college student 18 years oldand I walked into St. Paul’s UniversityChapel and picked up the Catholic Workernewspaper and realized for the first timethat other people thought Jesus meant whathe said. That was a revelation.

I was immediately a faithful reader ofthe Catholic Worker and did what wecould as students to live that lifestyle andsupport it. Dorothy Day is such an incred-ibly good writer. I love good writing, so Idon’t know how many times I’ve readThe Long Loneliness. It’s right up therewith Lord of the Rings. [laughs]

She just seemed to me to be writing thegospel, saying something that I knewinside was true. So that was very inspiringthat people were actually doing this.

Somebody was really doing this and hadbeen doing it for years. It just helped meto figure out what to do with my life. Andthe more people you meet in the CatholicWorker, you find they’re all incredible.

Spirit: Incredible in what ways? Douglass: By and large, the people I

know in the Catholic Worker are just veryclear about what is important and whatneeds to be done. They’re very committedand dedicated and great fun, almost alwaysa good sense of humor and very creative.They’re just sort of amazing people.

At the end of The Long Loneliness,Dorothy Day writes that we’ve all experi-enced the long loneliness and she’s sayingthe cure for the long loneliness is commu-nity, and love and community cometogether. She talks about how the CatholicWorker all started. She writes that wewere all sitting around talking and peoplecame and people needed a place to live,and it all started while we were sittingaround talking, which is basically howeverything starts at the Catholic Worker.

NOT ONLY PEACE, BUT JUSTICE TOO

Spirit: The Catholic Worker is one ofthe few groups that integrates working forpeace and working for justice. Why didthey make the connection between protest-ing militarism and being in solidarity withpeople living in poverty?

Douglass: Because it’s directly out ofthe gospel. You know, as a kid I thoughtJesus meant what he said and DorothyDay thought the same thing. And basical-ly, when I went to the big sophisticatedtheology school in Vancouver, they saidexactly the same thing.

In those days, it was fashionable to tryand figure out which of the scripturalthings Jesus probably actually said, andone of the criteria was to find the thingsthat nobody would want to do — andthose are the things he probably reallysaid. [laughs] So, sell all you have andgive to the poor and come follow me, loveyour enemy, put down your sword, visitthe prisoner, give your clothes to thenaked, feed the hungry...

Spirit: Blessed are the peacemakers andthose who hunger and thirst for justice.

Douglass: Right, exactly, and if you’repersecuted, more power to you. [laughs]

Spirit: Because the prophets beforeyou were persecuted.

Douglass: Yeah, exactly, to say noth-ing of Jesus, of course. So that’s thegospel in a nutshell and the whole point of

Anti-nuclear demonstrators parade the “Trident Monster” through the streets of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.

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the Catholic Worker is to live the gospel.So it isn’t really a sense of trying to dosomething political; it’s the sense of try-ing to live the gospel. And, of course, thatwinds up being very political.

Spirit: So working against war andinjustice is radically political, yet it stemsfrom the gospel teachings of “blessed arethe peacemakers” and “feed the hungry.”

Douglass: And “love your enemy.” Imean, “blessed are the peacemakers” youcan take a lot of different ways, but “loveyour enemy” is pretty specific.

Spirit: Catholic Workers often protestwars overseas, but also serve poor andhungry people on the streets of our owncities. Is that a message to the larger com-munity — that we’re called to do both?

Douglass: Well, we certainly arecalled to do both, and I don’t see how youcan talk about having a just and peacefulworld if you’re only talking about over-seas. I mean we live here, so we need ajust and peaceful world here too.

Spirit: Speaking of a just world athome, what level of poverty do you find inAlabama? What are the needs of the peo-ple that come to your door seeking help?

Douglass: People that come to us needhomes; they need jobs that pay a decentwage; they need decent public transporta-tion; and they need education for their kids.The basic sort of economic human rightsthat are recognized around the world are nothuman rights in the United States.

Here in Alabama, we’re a poor stateand we have this huge legacy of veryobvious racism and it’s gone on for hun-dreds of years. The whole country has thatlegacy, but in the Deep South, you’re sit-ting right in the middle of it. And rightnow our state legislature is totally con-trolled by the Republican Party and isvery busily trying to curtail the right tovote — just as we celebrate the 50thanniversary of the Selma March.

You know, they are trying to cut backon any services to poor and vulnerablepeople because they don’t want to raisetaxes. It’s the same thing that’s going onall over the country, but I think it’s partic-ularly potent in the South and in Alabama.

Spirit: What methods are Republicansusing to curtail voting rights?

Douglass: Well, we have voter IDrequirements now. If you want to vote,you have to have an ID card, and a lot ofpeople don’t have IDs. A lot of people inthe rural South don’t drive. A lot of peo-ple are elderly or they don’t have trans-portation. It’s hard to go out and get a dri-ver’s license or a state ID because youdon’t have any way to get there, and all ofthese things cost money. If you alreadychoose between paying your rent or buy-ing medicine, you’re not likely to shellout another $20 or $30 for an ID card.

For people who are poor, it just addsanother rung to the ladder that you have toclimb to be able to have a voice. And somany of the black men in our communityare in prison. They’re often in prison fornonviolent crimes, but they’re stillfelonies, which means they lose their rightto vote.

Spirit: A massive disenfranchisementon top of massive imprisonment.

Douglass: Yeah, it’s a huge thing. Thisbook by Michelle Alexander called TheNew Jim Crow makes the argument that it’sa conscious attempt or a semiconsciousattempt to keep black people in their place— the same place that white people and thepower structure have been trying to keepthem in for hundreds of years.

MARY’S HOUSE IN BIRMINGHAM

Spirit: You described how you firstbecame inspired by the Catholic Workerwhile in college. How did you beginMary’s House in Birmingham?

Douglass: When we moved here toBirmingham, we were sort of delegated byGround Zero to watch trains, but after wehad been here for two years we realizedthere were no more trains to watch. So wehad to make the choice: Do we go back toGround Zero, or do we stay here, and if westay here, what are we here for?

So that just kind of fit in with myalways having wanted to do a CatholicWorker. So we decided that we would doa Catholic Worker, even though we hadno money. I mean, you never have anymoney when you start a Catholic Worker.

Spirit: Dorothy Day described one ofthe primary missions of the CatholicWorker as providing houses of hospitality.Does Mary’s House offer hospitality?

Douglass: Well, physically, Mary’sHouse is a big old house, kind of likemany Catholic Worker houses. It wasbuilt in 1920 in the Ensley area ofBirmingham, which used to be a big steeland brickmaking area. It’s got four bed-rooms, one of which I sleep in, and threeof them we use as hospitality, primarilyfor families or single women. Peoplecome and stay while they get on their feet.It’s kind of like a big family house.

Spirit: Do you seek out other servicesin the community and connect your resi-dents with these sources of help?

Douglass: Yes, we’ve been open forquite a long time now so we have somegood ties with various services. There’s aMethodist group that has a place calledUrban Ministries and their social workerswork with us a lot. The people who arestaying with us can go to them to get con-nected with various kinds of services, helppaying bills and food and places to live.

There aren’t enough places to live, soit’s difficult and time-consuming to find aplace that you can afford to live. But we dohave a lot of community support.Financially we are totally dependent on thecommunity. Everything is done by dona-tions and by volunteers. Nobody gets paid.

Spirit: Do any of the churches inBirmingham get involved or provide help?

Douglass: A couple of parishes give usregular money and a lot of people fromchurches give us money. Also, we havework parties. And there’s a Catholic thingcalled JustFaith Ministries. It’s a nation-wide series of courses that parishes do onsocial justice teachings of the church andthey always get radicalized when they doit. It’s wonderful. We have a lot of tieswith people who have gone through thatprogram. And we have a lot of Methodistties, Methodist coworkers and friends. It’sa community endeavor, even thoughwe’re the people who are physically hereall the time.

OPPOSING THE DEATH PENALTY

Spirit: You became involved in oppos-ing the death penalty and also began visit-ing a prisoner on death row. Why are youopposed to the death penalty?

Douglass: We’ve always been againstthe death penalty, theoretically. It goes withthe territory: We don’t believe in killingpeople. We started out being opposed to thedeath penalty on a kind of theoretical levelbecause we’re committed to nonviolence.And clearly, the death penalty is a ratherfinal use of violence on the part of the state.Then, from a religious perspective, webelieve that Jesus meant what he said,which is that you love your enemy and youforgive, and you don’t take vengeance. Sothose two things meant that we wereagainst the death penalty.

Spirit: Wasn’t Jesus himself a victimof the death penalty?

Douglass: Well, he definitely was. Hewas a political prisoner who was executedto discourage any kind of rebellionagainst the Romans.

Spirit: You’d think the fact that the cen-tral figure in Christianity was executedmight give our government the idea that thedeath penalty is the wrong way to go.

Douglass: I think the state might stillthink it’s the way to go, but it might giveus Christians the idea that it’s not the wayto go. If Jesus were executed today, hemight be put in the electric chair or itmight be lethal injection. Then, instead ofwearing crosses around our necks, we’dbe wearing syringes or electric chairs.

Spirit: Yes, people forget that the crosswas the state’s instrument of execution.

Douglass: Right — for political sub-versives especially.

Spirit: When did the death penaltybecome something more personal to youthan just one more political issue?

Douglass: It wasn’t until we got toknow Leroy White personally, as a humanbeing, that we were kind of moved in ourgut to take more action against it. It’s awhole different thing when it’s an issueand when it’s a person, you know?

Spirit: So with Leroy White, it becamea person you knew and cared about?

Douglass: Right, and who had a bigfamily outside of prison who were tremen-dously affected by what happened to him.

What actually led up to our working per-sonally against the death penalty here inAlabama was that we got a letter fromHattie Nestle, an activist friend of ours inMassachusetts, saying that she was corre-sponding with a prisoner down here ondeath row. She said he hadn’t had visitorsin five or 10 years and could we go andvisit him. She didn’t realize how bigAlabama is. It’s four or five hours travel tothe death row prison, so it wasn’t like wewere just going to hop on down there. But Istarted to write to Leroy White, who washer friend, and after a year or two of writingto him, I decided that I would visit.

Spirit: Where was Leroy White con-fined? What prison and in what city?

Douglass: He was in Atmore Prison,which is where most of our death rowprisoners are and it’s just slightly north ofMobile, Alabama. [Holman CorrectionalFacility is located near the town ofAtmore in southern Alabama.] It wouldtake four hours to drive down and wewould visit for a couple hours, then I’d turnaround and drive back. After I’d done thatfor a couple years, Jim started coming too,so for a long time the two of us went.

Spirit: Why did it become so importantthat you kept visiting him for severalyears? His case was nearly hopeless andthe death penalty was not likely to bereversed. Some might have found it hard tokeep visiting under those conditions.

Douglass: It was important becausehere was this person who was totally iso-lated, waiting for them to kill him, sittingin a brutal prison. Nobody was in touchwith him. Nobody seemed to care. Onceyou meet somebody like that, it becomespersonal and you want to continue to sup-port him. And we built a relationship.

It wasn’t a really easy relationship tobuild because, to start with, we didn’t havea lot in common. It was good when Jimwent because they could talk sports, but Idon’t know anything about sports so Ididn’t have that to fall back on. We wouldtalk about our kids and that sort of thing.

But it was a difficult thing, especiallyearly on, because Leroy told us what hewas in for. He had killed his wife and,being who I am, that’s the person I’mleast likely to relate to. This is where youget challenged in your nonviolence and allthat, because that’s the person I’m leastlikely to want to be friends with.

Spirit: He killed his wife with a shot-gun and also shot her sister, didn’t he?

Douglass: Shot her sister, but didn’tkill her. He was berserk on drugs andalcohol and his little daughter was therewhen he did it and his stepson was in thehouse, nearby. So you know, it was aboutas horrible as you can imagine.

Spirit: So why did you continue tocare about him? Why did you drive allthose miles to visit for all those years?

Douglass: Well, we knew that thatwasn’t all there was to Leroy.

Spirit: What else was there to under-stand about Leroy?

Douglass: Like all of us, Leroy was acomplex person. He’d had a rural Alabamachildhood, a southern childhood.Depending on your cultural background, Iguess you could say he was abused as achild. He came from a very big family, thenhad gone into the military. He had actuallylived in Seattle not far from where we hadlived, and he had some mental problemsthat I think led him to be violent.

He was dismissed from the militarybecause he attacked his commanding offi-cer and they discharged him dishonorablyinstead of trying to get him any help.

Then he went to college and met Rubyand married her, and all of that time hewas doing drugs pretty heavily. I thinkwhen we first met him in prison, he wasstill using drugs in the prison, which ofcourse is not that hard to do. But overthose years that we were visiting, hebegan to come to terms with what he haddone, and to try and build a relationshipwith La Tonya, his daughter.

He became a part of a community ofmen inside the prison who are part of agroup called Project Hope to Abolish theDeath Penalty. It’s an inside group work-ing against the death penalty. So he deep-ened a lot in his self-knowledge, I think.He understood more about himself.

You know, you age and die on deathrow if they don’t electrocute you or mur-der you in some other way. One of themen there had a stroke and was inconti-nent and had to be taken care of, and, ofcourse, there’s no nursing service or any-thing. So Leroy was one of the majorcaregivers for this man. Yeah, Leroy wasnever an angel, but he became a verycompassionate person.

Spirit: Still, it must have been hard foryou, both as a feminist and as someone sodeeply committed to nonviolence, to com-prehend his murder of an unarmedwoman. How were you able to continuevisiting and supporting him?

Douglass: I knew him as a personbefore he told us why he was on deathrow, and it was like facing the humanityof the enemy, because in my theoreticalconstruct, the person who shoots his wifewould be the enemy. But I already knewhim as a person, so I had to put togetherthis Leroy person that I knew face to face,with the enemy who had come with ashotgun and killed his wife.

So it was a challenge for my nonvio-lence. At that point, we had a relationshipand I wasn’t going to end the relationshipbecause of something he had done 10 or 15years before, but it was an uncomfortablekind of thing. You just have to live throughit. Obviously, I never condoned what hedid. Eventually, he got to the point wherehe would talk with us about his remorse.

He changed over the time that we visitedhim. I’m not saying this is because we visit-ed him, but over time, he became a muchmore serious person and faced up to whathe had done. He talked about how he wassorry that he had done that, and he certainlyunderstood that this was a wrong thing tohave done and that it hurt his family in a lotof ways and that he was responsible. Thatgave me more peace about being in support

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of him and visiting him.

Spirit: Many people that you mightexpect to be completely hostile actuallyasked that he not be put to death — evensome family members on his wife’s side.

Douglass: Yeah, all of the family, as amatter of fact, and the woman that heshot. We began visiting Leroy when onlyone of his sisters would visit him. He’sone of nine kids, and he was one of theyounger ones. He was on death row forover 20 years, so over time the hostilityand recriminations began to break down.

The sister who was consistently intouch was raising his two-year-old daugh-ter, La Tonya. La Tonya was his daughterwith the wife that he killed, Ruby. As LaTonya grew up, at first she would writeletters to Leroy and visit with her aunt;but as she grew older, she cut Leroy offbecause she was rightfully angry at whathe had done. It was after several years thatshe eventually came to terms with it andaccepted him back into her life again.

Spirit: That must have been a hugestep for her.

Douglass: Oh yeah, and she’s young. Ithink she was 24 when he was killed fouryears ago. So having made that move,they became very close. She visited andthey wrote back and forth and theyphoned as much as they could. By thetime the state was ready to execute Leroy,his family had become very close to eachother and La Tonya remained close withthe other side — to Ruby’s family.

When the state suddenly announcedthat he was being executed, there wereabout three or four months where thelawyers were trying to do something andthe family was trying to get a clemencyhearing. Leroy’s brothers and sistersdidn’t want him killed, and La Tonyaclearly didn’t want him killed.

She wrote to the governor and said, “Ifyou kill my father, then I’m an orphan and Ihave no parents left.” She asked for him tohave life without parole instead. But theinteresting thing was that the other side —Ruby’s family, including Ruby’s sister,who was one of the people Leroy shot —were also opposed to his execution.

Spirit: It seems almost unbelievable.Why did his wife’s side of the family endwanting his life to be spared?

Douglass: They were opposed becauseof La Tonya, and because they had stayedclose to her. That was her mother’s fami-ly, and they knew how much she hadcome to care about Leroy. They knew thatshe saw him clearly as her only remainingparent and she didn’t want him killed. Soalthough they were still very angry withLeroy for what he did, they didn’t wanthim killed for the sake of La Tonya.

Spirit: So she only had two or threeyears with him after accepting him as herfather again before the state took his life?

Douglass: Yes. She was 24 when theykilled him after she had become close tohim. For a long time, they were estranged.When we first visited Leroy, he would saythings like, “I wrote La Tonya all thisfatherly advice and she won’t answer myletters.” And I’m thinking, “Well Leroy,is that really a surprise?”

But over the years they had workedthrough this, and she had forgiven him andbecome close to him. She saw him as herfather and she’d read his letters of advice.She appealed to the governor for clemencybecause she said, “If you kill my father,both of my parents will be gone.”

Spirit: It’s kind of beautiful that shehad a spirit so large that she could end up

feeling he was her father. Douglass: And Ruby’s side of the fam-

ily asked that he not be executed becauseof what it would do to her. So the entirefamily on both sides was united on that.

About a year after they killed Leroy, Iwent on a speaking tour with Bill Pelke, therelative of a murder victim who travels tospeak against the death penalty. We were ata little town near Selma. Leroy was fromthat area and I always talked about his caseas the epitome of all the bad things that canhappen with the death penalty in Alabamabecause he was guilty of the crime he wasaccused of, but in every other way, it was amiscarriage of justice. I was telling hisstory and afterward, two women stood upin the audience and said, “We are Ruby’ssisters and we know all about this case.”

Spirit: The sisters of his wife wereactually in your audience? What did theysay about Leroy’s case?

Douglass: They basically reinforcedwhat I had said about why he shouldn’thave been killed. It was a blessing thatthey did that. This was very up-close andpersonal for them, of course.

Spirit: Their own sister was murderedby this man and yet they still felt his exe-cution was a miscarriage of justice?

Douglass: Exactly. Yeah, by the timehe was executed, even the prosecutingattorney who prosecuted him thought heshould be spared.

Spirit: Just before his execution, TheHuntsville Times reported that BruceGardner, the district attorney who prose-cuted Leroy, condemned the death penaltyas a “barbaric, abhorrent practice.” Whatdid you think about his turnaround?

Douglass: Well, it’s a good thing. And Ithought it was about time. We’re all com-plicit in different ways with the system ofviolence and he faced the way that he wascomplicit and made changes, and that’svery good. It’s like the people at the Trident

base who left their work in the military.You see that what you’re doing is wrongand hopefully you have the guts and thewisdom to stop that and do something else,and, in his case, to come out and oppose it.

Spirit: Gardner spoke out against theexecution and said,“I’ll be in a somber,contemplative mood wishing the best forLeroy.” Does this change of heart from aformer prosecutor give you any hope?

Douglass: Yeah, in terms of the deathpenalty, it gives me hope. Of course, it’stoo late to do anything to help Leroy, butyeah, it offers hope. It’s the same questionas how do we respond to the White Traincoming in with nuclear weapons, becausethere’s this tremendous violence beingdone and the process of nonviolence islong and slow. It’s a similar kind of thing,you know, because Leroy is dead.

Spirit: When Gardner spoke outagainst the execution, it was far too lateto prevent Leroy’s execution.

Douglass: Well, that’s true. One of thecentral conflicts in nonviolence is that weall have to be converted. We all have to beconverted over time, and in the meantime,a lot of suffering goes on. You know, thatwas one of the conflicts we had aroundhow to act at the Trident base because thetrains were going in carrying nuclearweapons and that made people kind offrantic, and the rate of nonviolent changeis slow, so you have to be patient.

We were pretty involved in the processof watching all these people come forward,saying that Leroy shouldn’t be executed,and saying that the judge wouldn’t havesentenced him to death except that it washis first death-penalty case and he didn’tknow what he was doing. And the prosecu-tor now thinks the death penalty is barbaric,and a couple of Leroy’s lawyers whodefended him said they were incompetent,and that they were tax lawyers or whatever.So nobody thought he should be killed.

Spirit: Yet he was killed. Why did noone listen when all the people spoke out?

Douglass: Well, it’s the system. Thegovernor could have granted clemencyand I don’t know why he didn’t becausehe was at the end of his second term. Hewas about to go out of office and itwouldn’t have cost him anything becausehe couldn’t run again. So I don’t knowwhy he didn’t, but he didn’t.

Spirit: You and Jim were present whenLeroy was executed. What was that expe-rience like for you on a personal level?

Douglass: Well, the way it works, thewhole thing is nuts. When you’re on deathrow, you get four visits a month and youhave a list of four to six people who canvisit you, but only two of them at thesame time. So Leroy was on death row foralmost 20 years and his visits, when hehad any, were totally curtailed.

Then, the week before they kill you,starting on Monday morning, you canhave up to 15 people at a time for theentire day, all week. So we went down onTuesday morning with his family, and forthe next days, we all sat around. It’s like abig gymnasium with sort of school lunchtables, and the only food you get comesfrom the junk food machines they have.

We stayed there from 9 to 5 every daywith Leroy and his family. Most of thefamily came at least part of the time. It’sjust surreal that you know they’re going tokill this man and he’s perfectly healthy —well, not perfectly healthy, but he’s certain-ly not about to die. And they’re going tokill him on Thursday and we’re all sittingaround talking. The family is reminiscingabout “do you remember this and that?”and “how is so and so?”

This went on for four days and we’re alllistening in the back of our heads to see ifthe lawyer is going to come and say there’sa stay of execution, or if the governor isgoing to grant clemency. We’re all kind ofwaiting for that, but nobody’s really talkingabout it. It’s just bizarre. I don’t know howwe did that. It’s very strange.

Spirit: Was his daughter there too?Douglass: La Tonya was there the

whole time. On the last day, she tried topersonally call the governor to plead forher father’s life. She ended up missing acouple hours of that last day because shewas sure the governor was going to returnher call, and she was at the motel waitingbecause there was no way for him to callher in the prison. Eventually, she cameback. They kill people here at 6 p.m., so atabout 4 o’clock, they came in and tookLeroy out. And that’s like a funeral withthe person there alive, with people wailingand the whole thing.

Spirit: His family was crying andanguished when they led him away?

Douglass: Oh yeah, yeah. And LaTonya was just a basket case at that pointbecause she had really convinced herselfthat the governor would do something.She was wailing and crying and huggingLeroy. It was not a good scene.

The worst part of it is, when this hap-pens in Alabama, there’s nowhere for thefamily to go. They come and take the per-son off to a little concrete-block buildingwhere they kill people. And the familygoes out the visiting entrance into theparking lot and then that’s it for them.

They don’t even have any way ofknowing whether the person’s been killedor when he’s been killed. There’s no com-munication at all. So they get in their carand drive back to Selma, knowing that asthey’re driving, Leroy’s being strappeddown to the gurney. It’s just inhumane,not only to the person being killed, but tothe whole family.

Spirit: Did you and Jim witness theactual execution itself?

Douglass: Yeah, we did.

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“The works of mercy.” Rita Corbin’s art depicts the Catholic Worker ideal of givingmercy to the hungry, the sick, the stranger and the prisoner, based on Matthew 25.

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T14

Spirit: Did Leroy’s family not want tosee his execution?

Douglass: Leroy didn’t want them to. Idon’t know if they would have wanted to,but he didn’t want them to see that.

Spirit: Tell me what you witnessed whenyou went into that concrete building.

Douglass: Well, we were driven to theconcrete building by two guards in a carwho were laughing and joking becausethis is just part of their job. Then, whenwe got there, we sat outside for two hoursuntil 8 o’clock, not knowing why becausethey kill people at 6. All we knew wasthat he hadn’t yet been killed.

It turned out that Clarence Thomas hadissued a stay while the Supreme Courtread the case — and then he lifted thestay. For two hours nobody knew, and Idon’t know if Leroy knew. He wasstrapped to the gurney that whole time.

Spirit: Oh God.Douglass: Yeah. So then they take you

inside this building, once they finallydecide that it’s time. The prisoner isallowed to have witnesses and the vic-tim’s family is allowed to have witnesses,so there are two separate rooms that peo-ple can sit in to watch this processthrough a big glass window. In Leroy’scase, we were the only witnesses and wewere there for him and the victim, I guessyou could say, because she was familytoo. And there were reporters.

They opened a curtain and there wasLeroy in a very tiny room on a gurneystrapped down in cruciform, which isinteresting. The arms of the gurney go outto the sides like a cross and he’s got atube in his vein in his arm and the tubegoes into the wall. There are three peoplebehind the wall who pull levers andnobody knows which one starts the “cock-tail” running, so it’s kind of like the firingsquad, when nobody’s supposed to knowwho really does the deed.

But the way you know the actualkilling has started is the chaplain, who isin the room with Leroy, kneels down andstarts to pray. That’s how you know thatthey’re killing him. And who knows whata person’s body feels during these thingsbecause one of the drugs paralyzes you soyou don’t have any way of knowing. Imean, we could tell that he was gaspingfor breath, and you could tell that he wasnot comfortable when he died.

Spirit: How long did it take for him todie? Did you have any way of knowing?

Douglass: From the time it started, Ithink it was probably 10 or 15 minutes forthe whole process. They do things: Theytap his eye and they call in his ear andthey do all of this stuff that’s supposed toprove he’s dead. Then they close the cur-tain and you get driven off. But he wasvery calm. He wasn’t struggling. He wasas resolved as a person can be, I guess.

Spirit: When you talked to Leroy onthat last day, what did he say about hisupcoming execution?

Douglass: You know what he said?One thing he said was, “I hope they don’ttake too long because I’m worried aboutyou all driving home in the dark.”

Spirit: Oh God! Sometimes life is justtoo strange for me to take.

Douglass: Isn’t that something?

Spirit: That is the trippiest thing I’veever heard.

Douglass: The last thing he said on thatlast day was not for himself. It was for thepeople who were there to support him.

Spirit: I’ll never figure this life out.Did he say anything else?

Douglass: No profound last wordswere said. There was a chaplain who hadbeen meeting with him who came by thatday. And, you know, he said he was readyand that kind of thing. He thanked every-body and told us he loved us and all, butno, he didn’t say any last words.

Spirit: What do you think of executionsnow, after seeing a person that you hadcome to care about being put to death?

Douglass: Well, I think they’re brutaland barbaric and cruel and inhumane.

When Leroy killed Ruby, that waswrong. But Leroy was in the grip of hugerage and was upset that his whole life wasfalling apart. She had left him, and I thinkshe was wanting to marry somebody else.He was drunk, he was high on drugs, hiswhole life was falling apart, and he didthis horrible thing.

But when he was executed, there werefour or five people in uniform, very coldand dispassionate, doing their jobs, strap-ping him down, putting poison in his veins.

Spirit: That’s called murder in the firstdegree, isn’t it? They rationally and delib-erately chose to put this man to death.And so did the Supreme Court justicesand so did the government officials whowashed their hands of his death.

Douglass: Exactly, yes. So to me, thatwas much worse than what Leroy did,because he had this whole scenario ofanger and rage and drugs and everythingfalling apart. (But when he was executed),nobody was on drugs, nobody was angry,it was all very cold and calculated.

Spirit: And it was murder, whateverthey may call it.

Douglass: And murder, yeah. In fact,on the death certificate, when a person isexecuted, they put it down as homicide.

Spirit: As homicide? They do?Douglass: They do. We have death

certificates that we use in our demonstra-tions for people who have been killed.

Spirit: When they reinstated the deathpenalty in the 1970s and executed GaryGilmore and John Spenkelink, I wrote thatthe most lethal killer of all had beenunleashed: the state executioner. Think ofall the people executed since then.

Douglass: Yeah, we have 203 peopleon death row right now, most of themmen, five of them women, in Alabama.It’s about 60 percent African American,pretty much all poor. If they weren’t poor,they wouldn’t be on death row.

Spirit: Why wouldn’t they be?Douglass: Because they could afford

decent lawyers. In Alabama, if you’re ontrial for a capital crime, and you’re indi-gent, they do appoint you a court-appointedlawyer. But the amount of money is cappedat an incredibly low figure, at a level thatwould pay maybe four or five hours of alawyer’s time at the rates they charge.

And they are not reimbursed for extrathings like mitigating research or forensics.So if you don’t have money to pay for yourown lawyer, you’re losing already becauseunless somebody works on it pro bono,they just aren’t going to be able to do thekind of work that needs to be done.

You may remember that Leroy’s initiallawyer was a guy who hadn’t been a lawyerin Alabama for very long and he advisedhim to plead not guilty because in Florida,where he had practiced, you couldn’t beconvicted of burglary when you were enter-ing a home that you had lived in recentlyyourself. He told Leroy to plead not guiltyand Leroy took his advice, thinking hewould serve time. But it turned out the guywas wrong and so Leroy was convicted.

So in the initial stage, you have acourt-appointed attorney who is woefullyunderpaid and probably overworked.

Spirit: What about appeals? Is anymoney made available for an appeal?

Douglass: If you are convicted of a cap-

ital offense, there are two tiers of appealsin Alabama that run consecutively andthey’re very complicated legal procedures.And you no longer have a lawyer suppliedto you, so you either find somebody thatwill do it for free — which, as you canimagine, is not easy — or you try and do ityourself, or you just don’t have anybody.Leroy had a couple different peopleappointed, all of whom said they wereincompetent. A couple of them resignedfrom his case and never told him they hadresigned, so when a date for his death camedown, he didn’t even know that he had losthis appeals because he thought he had alawyer representing him.

Spirit: Leroy White was an AfricanAmerican man living in Alabama, a statewith a terrible history of racism and vio-lence. How does that legacy of racismplay out in the injustices you see today?

Douglass: Alabama is still a hugelyracist entity. Well, the whole country is ahugely racist entity and I don’t thinkwe’ve really confronted the fact that thisUnited States that we talk about as beingthe hope of the world was founded on abasis of racism and genocide. First, withthe native people who lived here in thebeginning before any of the Europeanscame. And then, with the wholesaleexploitation of all the black people whowere kidnapped and brought over hereand lived as slaves under a system ofinstitutionalized terrorism which didn’tend when slavery ended. You know, itgoes on to this day to a large extent, and itjust keeps changing its form.

Spirit: Have there been significantchanges in Birmingham since the civilrights era when it was one of the mostnotorious cities in the nation?

Douglass: On the one hand, everythingis very different in Birmingham. Our citycouncil is largely African American. Ourmayor is African American. The last threemayors, all of the mayors since we got here,have been African American. The policechief is African American. You can godown the line and many of these officesthat had never been filled by anyone butwhite, good old boys, now are filled bypeople who are African American.

On the other hand, there are very fewelected prosecutors in the state who areAfrican American and those are the peo-ple who decide what charges to bring. Thepolice forces tend to be quite brutal. Itdepends on where you are, but the racismis still there and to some extent stillenshrined in our state constitution.

Spirit: What do you mean? How isracism enshrined in the state constitution?

Douglass: Our constitution for thestate of Alabama was written in 1901 bywhite landowners, former plantation own-ers, with the explicit purpose of keepingblack people and poor white people out ofpower. It was a reaction to Reconstructionwhere we actually had black elected offi-cials and black people voting and beingtreated like human beings.

So this constitution was written in1901 specifically to keep the plantationclass, the planter class, in power. And itstill has in it provisions that make it ille-gal to educate kids together of differentraces. Right after Jim and I moved here,we defeated in a referendum and took outthe part that makes interracial marriageillegal. But that’s only recently, in the last20 years, and that was a close vote.

Spirit: That’s just unbelievable. And itwas a close vote?

Douglass: Yeah, it was. It squeakedthrough. It’s very insidious because therehave been two attempts in the last severalyears to remove the language that makesit illegal to educate kids together.

Spirit: But doesn’t Brown vs. TheBoard of Education make separate butequal education illegal?

Douglass: Well, that’s why it’s not ahuge issue, because it’s superseded byfederal law. The same was true for themiscegenation thing, but you know it’sright there in the law for the state.

Spirit: So symbolically, it’s still a griev-ous kind of racism that carries over.

Douglass: Exactly. And the solutionthat they were proposing would be evenworse because it removes any assumptionthat kids were supposed to have an educa-tion funded by the state. So, you have tobe very careful because it’s really subtle.

And for all these things, you have tohave a picture ID to vote. And if you’re apoor black person, you may not have apicture ID and it might not be possible toget one easily or at all.

Spirit: Disenfranchisement of blackpeople was a big tool of the Jim CrowSouth, and recently, disenfranchisementhas become a big tool of the Republicans.

Douglass: Right, exactly. And theoverwhelming majority of people in ourprisons are African American men whoget hit with felonies under the drug warlaws. Then they’re felons so they can’tvote, they can’t live in public housing,they can’t get public assistance. There’s awhole list of things that you can’t do onceyou’re a felon. It means that you cannever get back up again because you’realways in the custody of some part of thestate — if not in prison, then you’re onprobation or parole and you’re just notable to pick yourself up again.

Spirit: Many of the guests at Mary’sHouse are African American families. Hasthat opened a new window into what life islike in a city still so burdened by racism?

Douglass: To some extent. For the peo-ple at Mary’s House, the primary openwindows have to do more with being poor.The people I have really learned a lot from,as far as racism goes, have been my friendsfrom church and people like that who areway more successful in the eyes of societythan I’ll ever be. [laughs]

They often have beautiful homes out inthe suburbs and they make a lot of moneyand they’re doctors and lawyers andteachers and all those kinds of things. Andthey’re still subjected to all the indignitiesand dangerous things that the people Iwork with every day in the slums have todeal with. Things like driving while black,and having the talk with your kids so thathopefully they won’t get shot if they getpulled over by the police, and just con-stant assumptions about who they are thatare nowhere remotely true.

Spirit: Constant assumptions aboutwho they are based on race?

Douglass: Based on the color of theirskin, yeah. When we first came here toBirmingham, we began to go to a littleparish called Queen of the Universe, a littleblack Catholic Church, which is very pro-fessional. The people in that church, theirkids are judges, federal judges and lawyersand doctors and many of them were teach-ers — very respectable people.

A whole parish of respectable people,by and large, and a couple of months afterwe got there, we had a visiting priest whoused his sermon to tell people they shouldstay off drugs and save their money andmake sure their kids went to school.

It just kind of took your breath away.We hadn’t been there very long, but weknew enough about these folks to knowthat he was talking to the wrong audiencehere, because they wouldn’t even think ofthat. And it was because of the color oftheir skin, because he would not havepreached that sermon had it been a whiteparish that he was talking to.

Spirit: It was a white priest giving thisinappropriate and condescending sermon?

Douglass: Oh, of course, yeah. It was awhite priest. We only have two AfricanAmerican priests in the diocese.

A Lifelong Path of Nonviolencefrom page 13

September 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 15

Commentary by Robert Norse

At midnight on August 11, tenpolice officers converged on20 Freedom Sleepers at CityHall in Santa Cruz, some of

them awake on the public access way, andsome asleep on the grass. The officersrefused to respect the legal right to viewpublic agendas posted at City Hall, or thelanguage of the “Park Closing” law.

The Freedom Sleepers angrily objectedto the demands of police that they leave.Two people were given additional stay-away orders for 24 hours. Israel Dawson,a UCSC documentarian working to filmand record the protests, was handcuffedand arrested for “not identifying himself”and “walking away,” according to theofficer who arrested him.

Santa Cruz homeless advocates arecontinuing the protests, and remain deter-mined to rouse the conscience of the com-munity against the Sleeping Ban.

This was the most intrusive andaggressive police response yet. On thepositive side, the activists, angry at thearrest of an innocent photographer,returned to the park with the intention offorcing police to withdraw or arrest them.

Santa Cruz police, apparently afterconferring with sheriff’s deputies, mayhave been advised that the jail authoritiesweren’t interested in taking a dozen ormore people into custody.

Police ignored the wording of themunicipal ordinance (MC 13.04.011),which exempts passageways through parks,on which I, for one, was standing. Theyalso declined to suggest a legal place wherehomeless people — who made up half ourgroup — could go to sleep.

Earlier that evening, in the Santa CruzCity Council meeting, Freedom Sleepersread the text of the Department of Justicestatement supporting the right of home-less people to camp in Boise, Idaho. Inresponse, Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lanecut off Oral Communications before 10people in line could speak.

Meanwhile, the Freedom Speakers,angered by the unconstitutional andunnecessary police intimidation, continueto sleep on the sidewalk and plan to returnin greater force for the next actions. sleep-outs have been held every Tuesday in themonths of July and August.

The UCSC documentarians LaurenBenson and Israel Dawson had been vide-orecording the protests with their lightingand cameras on tripods. They had videoedextensively throughout the last fourprotests and sleepovers, as well as priorFreedom Sleeper breakfasts at Highway 1and River Street in Santa Cruz.

Indybay photographer and writer AlexDarocy also covered all the FreedomSleepers protests and published photos ofthe actions. All three reporters were cited orarrested earlier in the night. Add me to thelist since I extensively record police inter-action with protesters for broadcast on FreeRadio Santa Cruz. I received my secondcitation and my first-ever Stay-Away-from-City-Hall order (for 24 hours).

Lauren Benson got a ticket for “beingin a park after hours” (MC 13.04.011), aswell as a stay-away order for 24 hours. Ihad the honor of getting this phony cita-tion several minutes before Lauren. Sgt.Forbus denied my right to be on the

access pathway through the City Hallcourtyard and my demand to be allowedfree access to the posted city agendasalong that passageway.

Perhaps his primary concern was myaudio recording of each ticketing encounter.Perhaps it was my loud denunciations ofpolice shutting down the right to assembleat the seat of government. Police also citedDarocy for being in the park as he tookphotos of the event. This is the first timewhen all four reporters were cited.

Israel Dawson reported that, when toldby a cop to get his ID, he started walkingtowards his backpack, at which point hewas seized and handcuffed, charged with“resisting arrest,” held three hours at thejail, and given a misdemeanor charge. Hiscourt date is in mid-September and hecould face six months or a year in jail.

Police sought to drive protesters out ofthe park with citations and an arrest. Theyseemed upset that the demonstrators didn’tsimply disperse, but responded with angryquestions, and declared an intention toreturn to the City Hall courtyard in front ofthe mayor’s office.

Once most of the people had beenpushed to the sidewalk, police began tick-eting people for “blocking the sidewalk”or “lying down on the sidewalk” whenthey attempted to set up their beddingthere — in legal areas. The police alsothreatened to confiscate the fruit and veg-etables, peanut butter and jelly, and otherfood items. Abbi Samuels of Food NotBombs responded hotly that they couldtake the table, but Freedom Sleeperswould not be driven away.

Another officer ignored Samuel’sattempt to explain to him that the publicsidewalk in front of City Hall is not cov-ered by the ban against lying down (notjust sleeping). The City Council hadpassed that ban in order to make PacificAvenue hostile and off limits for poorpeople, street people, youth, and travelerstwo decades ago.

Demonstrators were very upset with thesoft-spoken Israel Dawson’s abduction for“resisting arrest.” In response, Rabbi PhilPosner and others declared they wouldimmediately return to where they’d beenresting or standing and, if necessary, go tojail in solidarity with Dawson.

Perhaps this challenge to their authori-ty prompted the police to abruptly leave.It might also have been the appearance of

four sheriff’s deputies seen consultingwith police. Hours later when Dawsonwas released, he noted he was not heldbecause of the bed shortage in the jail, soperhaps the deputies asked the cops not tosend more folks into a crowded jail.

Folks did get back to sleep, though inreduced numbers. There were probably atleast 10 sleepers on the sidewalk. I sleptin my car adjacent to the sleepers. All ofthis is “illegal” under MC 6.36. whichbans all sleeping on public property or incars after 11 p.m.

The police did not return at all in themorning. Interestingly, no one got sleep-ing, blanket, and camping ban tickets,perhaps to sidestep the embarrassing real-ity (and legal liability) that Santa Cruz has

no legal place for homeless people tosleep and yet simultaneously enacts a lawmaking sleep outside a crime.

After some discussion in an impromptuGeneral Assembly, the protesters decidedto maintain both their right to protest atCity Hall and the right of the homeless tosleep without being declared criminals.

The Freedom Sleepers plan to returnevery week in increased numbers andpress the community to support restora-tion of civil rights for the homeless (aswell as the basic right to be at City Hallfor peaceful petitioning, assembly, andprotest at night — denied since 2010 byadministrative edict). Join us in theseprotests if you believe in the right to sleep— and the First Amendment.

Santa Cruz Police Violate First Amendment Rights

“Make Sleeping Legal.” People even display protest signs in their sleep in Santa Cruz. Photo by Alex Darocy, Indybay.org.

The Freedom Sleepers planto return every week inincreased numbers to pressthe community to supportrestoration of civil rights forhomeless people.

Strong Peopleby George Wynn

I am amazedby the strengthof peoplewithout housingdespite all thenegativity they receiveand nightsthey darn near freeze

I asked a young manI would saybetween 30 and 35I did meetover coffee and cakeon the streethow he was able to survive?“I was raisedwith confidence!”

Something in Commonby George Wynn

His father's beenon the street a long timeand battered by itThe son thinkshis father will neverfind a place to live

Home used tobe the twoof them togetherNow they're bothout on the street

The Good Work by Claire J. Baker

There shall bepeace dovesfor every activist,

doves overflowingthe sky'sfour directions,

Flocks guidingeach otherby touching wings.

Dear needy world,the good workshall continue.

She Slept UnderMoonbeams(for a person on the street)

by Claire J. Baker

Others warned her not to sleepdirectly under the moon'srounded light,that it would reverseher magnetic poles,disrupt her karma.

Unmoved by the omenshe slept under moonbeams,opened her brave street-heartto the moon's benediction.

In a week of sleeping out,no alarming fright,she began a fresh directionin diction full of light.

September 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T16

by Steve Pleich

Buoyed by the Statement of Interestsubmitted by the Department ofJustice in the Boise federal camp-

ing ban case and by the support ofincreasing numbers of people experienc-ing homelessness, the Freedom Sleepersare continuing their highly visible sleep-outs at Santa Cruz City Hall. Three suc-cessful actions in July were followed byfour more sleepouts on August 2, August11, August 18 and August 25.

Sleepers have held their ground andkept up the pressure on the City Councilto repeal the local camping ban, despiterepeated orders to disperse from 10 to 14police officers stationed at City Hall dur-

ing the evening protests. The police havealso resorted to the more intimidating tac-tics of arrests and handcuffs.

The Santa Cruz ban on camping pro-hibits sleep between the hours of 11 p.m.and 8:30 a.m. anywhere in the city limits.Says Freedom Sleeper and homeless com-munity member Dreamcatcher, “This isour chance to speak directly to our cityofficials in a way that the homeless arevery seldom able to do. We will not wastethis opportunity.”

Support for the Freedom Sleepers con-tinues to build, with the latest declaration ofsupport coming from the Santa CruzCounty Chapter of the ACLU of NorthernCalifornia. Speaking on behalf of theBoard, ACLU Chair Peter Gelblum said,

“In our view, the situation in Santa Cruz islegally indistinguishable from the situationin Boise. We believe that the FreedomSleepers are working effectively to bringattention to these important issues and toprotect significant constitutional rights.”

Media attention seems to be buildingas well. Community Television of SantaCruz County recently aired an hour-longlive panel discussion with four of thefounding members of the FreedomSleepers, and Santa Cruz Indy Media pho-tojournalist Alex Darocy has been onscene covering every event.

Santa Cruz activists hope that theFreedom Sleeper actions will inspirehomeless activists in other cities to beginFreedom sleepouts of their own at seats of

government to demand the repeal of localcamping bans and to call for an end to thecriminalization of homelessness.

Homeless United for Friendship andFreedom (HUFF) member and FreedomSleeper Becky Johnson sets the bar high.“We have always needed a national move-ment to end the criminalization of home-lessness, and the Boise statement, togetherwith freedom sleepout actions, may be thecatalyst we’ve been waiting for. We reallyneed to seize the time.”

Freedom Sleepers plan to continuetheir community sleepouts at the SantaCruz City Hall indefinitely. Updates onactions and events can be found on thegroup website @freedomsleepers.org.

Freedom Sleepouts Continue as Support Grows

table, which also displayed crates marked,“Free Produce & Groceries.”

Later in the afternoon, the campersmade their first appearance at a SantaCruz City Council meeting. They havebeen holding the sleepouts at City Hallsince July, but the council had been out ofsession for summer vacation.

During the public oral communicationsperiod, they each used their two-minuteturn at the council podium to read sectionsfrom a recent statement of interest filed bythe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in alegal case involving an ordinance whichbans sleeping and camping in publicplaces in Boise, Idaho.

Activists in Santa Cruz, as well asthose opposing sleeping bans in othercities across the country, have applaudedthe DOJ’s involvement in the Boise case,and hope this will lead to the repeal of theordinances.

The DOJ is taking the position thatlaws that criminalize homelessness violatethe “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”clause of the Eighth Amendment of theU.S Constitution.

“Pursuant to that clause, the SupremeCourt has held that laws that criminalizean individual’s status, rather than specificconduct, are unconstitutional,” the state-ment of interest states.

The Department of Justice’s statementof interest also notes that under theViolent Crime Control and LawEnforcement Act of 1994, the federal gov-ernment may enforce the rights of individ-uals to be free from “unconstitutional andabusive policing.” The DOJ also men-tioned in its conclusion that the lack ofavailable space in homeless sheltersshould be a measure of whether campingordinances can be enforced:

“For the reasons stated above, the Courtshould adopt the analysis in Jones to evalu-ate Boise’s anti-camping and disorderlyconduct ordinances as applied to Plaintiffsin this case. If the Court finds that it isimpossible for homeless individuals tosecure shelter space on some nights becauseno beds are available, no shelter meets theirdisability needs, or they have exceeded themaximum stay limitations, then the Courtshould also find that enforcement of theordinances under those circumstances crim-inalizes the status of being homeless andviolates the Eighth Amendment to theConstitution.”

The public was only allowed 30 min-utes to speak by the Santa Cruz CityCouncil, and some of the sleep activistswere not given any chance to address thecouncil. The meeting eventuallyadjourned at 10 p.m. Shortly after that, thecampers began to spread out in the court-yard and turn in for the night. Some of the

protesters have houses of their own to goto, while others in the group are houselessand live on the street.

Police conducted a raid on the sleepoutat around midnight. When they arrived, oneman was sleeping next to his wheelchair,which he parked on the walkway near theentrance to council chambers. He was cited,but he maintained his ground and slept inthe same location until morning.

About ten officers of the Santa CruzPolice Department, led by Sgt. Forbus,arrived during the raid. Forbus appearedto be videorecording protesters with anApple iPad device. Several sheriff’sdeputies responded as well, but not untilafter the courtyard had already beencleared by the SCPD.

Many of the Freedom Sleepers wereissued citations for being in the courtyardafter hours and were told to move to thenarrow portion of the sidewalk in front ofCity Hall. The sidewalk, however, was nota safe zone either, and people were issuedcitations for obstructing the sidewalk.

During the raid, videographer IsraelDawson was abruptly arrested while inthe act of recording and documenting theprotest. As they handcuffed his wriststogether from behind, police accused himof walking away from them when theywere trying to get his name. He wasbooked into county jail on the charge ofresisting arrest.

Dawson’s assistant, Lauren Benson,was holding a boom microphone that was

wired to Dawson’s video camera at thetime of the arrest. She was issued a cita-tion for being in the City Hall courtyardafter hours, in addition to a 24-hour stay-away order. Dawson and Benson havebeen documenting the series of sleepoutsfor Dawson’s final project in the SocialDocumentation Master of Arts program atUC Santa Cruz.

Homeless rights advocate Robert Norsewas also issued a 24-hour stay-away orderby police after he entered the courtyard areaand walked along the main pathway tocouncil chambers. He argued it was thepublic’s right to use the pathway to accessthe City Council agenda, but was issued acitation by police regardless.

The park’s stay-away ordinance wasadopted by the Santa Cruz City Council in2013 as a method of eliminating “prob-lem” behavior in public parks. Under theordinance, a park user can potentially bebanned for 24 hours after receiving onecitation of any type in a city park.Repeated citations can lead to a personbeing banned from a park for up to a year,and a violation of a stay-away order canresult in a misdemeanor arrest, which ispunishable by jail time.

After the police finished the raid andleft, several individuals did return to thecourtyard area, but most in the groupdecided to sleep on the sidewalk in frontof City Hall that evening, where theystayed until the morning.

Santa Cruz police issued many citations in sleepout protests. Photo by Alex Darocy

“End the Sleeping Ban.” Photo by Alex Darocy, Indybay.org.

“In our view, the situation in Santa Cruz is legally indistin-guishable from the situation in Boise. We believe that theFreedom Sleepers are working effectively to bring attentionto these important issues and to protect significant constitu-tional rights.” — Peter Gelblum, American Civil Liberties Union

Sleepouts in Defiance of Sleeping Banfrom page 1