Yesterday, January 5th, 2014 marked the end of the reign of Quan in Oakland. The ex-Mayor left a legacy of some 10,000 homeowners and their families evicted - many illegally, all immorally - from their Oakland residences, thousands upon thousands of renters unable to afford massively rising rents and pushed out of their city, the streets of Oakland turned into a warzone, and veterans engaged in peaceful protest or just walking down the street nearly killed by "less-lethal" weapons and old-fashioned beatings by her police force. Oh yeah, she did balance budget (as mandated by law) (on the backs of city workers) (in what came to be an expanding and ultimately booming economy).
Yesterday, Libby ("Oakland born and bred") Schaaf took the reins - literally - as she arrived at her Mayoral inauguration ceremony in a "snail cart" (seen in a side-view shot just below) that belched fire (don't ask). It may have been an attempt to upstage #BlackLivesMatter protesters, or perhaps it was because she is about to ban escargot from Oakland's restaurants - no one really knows.
What awaited her arrival at the Paramount theater on Broadway in downtown Oakland was indeed a long line of #BlackLivesMatter protesters holding a multitude of signs with the BLACK LIVES MATTER theme and against police violence. Prominently displayed was a poster (see below) showcasing Alan Blueford, a young black man who was one of the more recent victims of Oakland Police terror, in 2012.
Here's a set of tweets and pics as the events - both outside and inside - unfolded.
Setting the stage:
The protest line formed at about 1:30 PM:
Some more personal shots of those holding the line:
The new Mayor arrives in her snail chariot!
And the ceremonies begin...
The inauguration went on for hours, with City Councilors and the Mayor giving speeches. You can find a summary in today's SF Chronicle along with a carefully cropped picture of Libby arriving in the snail-mobile with all the protesters non-existent.