[News] A Call for Solidarity: Friends of the Bay View Newspaper

[Anti-Imperialist News]

4917 Third Street, San Francisco, California 94124
Phone: (415) 671-0789   Fax: (415) 671-0316
Email: 
<mailto:editor at sfbayview.com>editor at sfbayview.com 
Website: <http://www.sfbayview.com>www.sfbayview.com


A Call for Solidarity:
Friends of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper

You've probably heard the sobering news 
 the San 
Francisco Bay View Newspaper was forced to stop 
printing a weekly paper due to financial strain. 
The last printed copy went out on July 2nd, 
marking the 697th issue the Ratcliffs have 
printed since starting the paper back up in 1992.

We know that the Black press has been among our 
most powerful tools of liberation throughout 
history — in the first phases of what we now know 
to be ongoing work toward Abolition, 
Reconstruction, Civil Rights and Black Power. 
Today is no different. The Bay View paper had 
been carrying the torch of that legacy through incredibly challenging times.

It's hard to imagine a worse time to lose our 
ability to print the paper. As trouble brews for 
our comrades in international struggles, police 
repression and brutality escalate at home with 
millions of Black and other oppressed people 
forced into concentration camps (federal, state 
and private), the Bay View Newspaper struggles to 
maintain its national significance as a megaphone for resistance.

In California, where Black and Brown people's 
alliances are setting the stage for confrontation 
with the U.S. government's "free trade" and 
immigration policies, the establishment is desperately swiping back.

•    San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has 
unleashed a citywide ethnic cleansing plan to privatize affordable housing;

•    Regional, federal, state and local police 
agencies are consolidating tactics to brutalize 
opposition to capitalist exploitation;

•    Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has forced 
through the largest prison expansion project in U.S. history.

"At this time, our communities are faced with 
important questions like, 'Who else in the 
'progressive press' and in the Black press is 
going to consistently cover Haiti, Colombia, 
Brazil, El Salvador, France and Zimbabwe as well 
as East Oakland, Hunters Point, Hurricane 
Amerikkka, Chicago and New York?" POCC Minister of Information JR asks.

One of the only Black-owned radical publications 
in the U.S., the Bay View newspaper has 
consistently provided a public platform for 
communication and solidarity among U.S., African, 
Latin American and Caribbean activists and 
incarcerated people who are challenging 
imperialism throughout the world and from inside 
the U.S. prison industrial complex.

At its last run, the paper was printed and 
delivered to thousands of homes in Bayview 
Hunters Point, hundreds of locally owned 
businesses, community centers, libraries and 
churches in San Francisco and Oakland, and 
hundreds of people in captivity. We receive at 
least 60 letters every week from prisoners, 
including pen pal requests, reports of torture 
and abuse, requests for legal support, and 
submissions of news and views from prisons throughout the U.S.

The Bay View has maintained itself as an 
individually-funded FREE paper through a trickle 
of advertising revenue, national prisoner and 
resident subscriptions and a small pool of 
donors, which has included the staff itself. Its 
printed format is key to bridging the 'digital 
divide' in more ways than one, as many of its 
readers have no or very little access to the 
internet and few sources of trusted, current, 
community and activist-oriented news.

This is an urgent appeal to radical activists, 
individuals, and organizations to support the Bay View financially.
Our goal is to resume printing a monthly paper. You can make this possible.

Will your organization commit to buying ad space 
at a rate of $50-$100 per month or more? You can 
advertise for political campaigns, meetings, 
conferences, events, jobs, updates, and petition 
or fundraising drives. You can post calls to 
action, announcements, or even something as 
simple as your logo, mission statement and contact information.

We already know the paper is an important 
resource for prisoners, people of color, and 
working class communities. With your 
contribution, it can be an important resource for 
people to hook into the work of grassroots 
organizing and activism. But we need YOU to make this happen.

Immediately, we're in urgent need of a low-cost, 
experienced web designer to post articles, 
updates, an events calendar and useful 
advertisements daily. Once we're reasonably 
assured that we can sustain a monthly printed 
publication at $5,000 per month, we'll get that print wheel spinning again!

We're in the fight for you. Will you fight for the Bay View?

Checks can be mailed to SF Bay View; 4917 Third St., San Francisco, CA 94124

Tax deductible donations can be sent to the same 
address and written to HRIN (Hurricane Relief 
Information Network).  Or you can give online @ 
<http://sfbayview.com>sfbayview.com

We thank you in advance for your continued 
support and contributions to the Bay View Newspaper.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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