[News] AK Press Damaged by Warehouse Fire - How you can help!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*PRESS RELEASE: AK PRESS DAMAGED BY WAREHOUSE FIRE*

by Charles Weigl
Oakland, CA
March 25, 2015

*In the early morning of March 21, the building at that houses AK Press 
caught fire.* The blaze began in the building directly behind the AK 
Press warehouse, where two people lost their lives. It moved to the 
mixed-use building AK Press shares with 1984 Printing and 
30+ residents. Everyone in their building got out safely, but several 
units were completely destroyed. There was extensive water and smoke 
damage to other units, including the space occupied by AK Press.

On the afternoon of March 24th, the City of Oakland red-tagged the 
building, which prohibits the publisher from “entering or occupying” its 
warehouse.

AK Press, a collectively owned and worker-run business, was in the 
process of announcing celebrations for its 25^th anniversary—with 
parties planned in New York City and Oakland, CA, in April. The 
publisher had also just received back from the printer its most 
anticipated title of recent years, /Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction 
Stories from Social Justice Movements/, for which orders continue to 
stream in.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, friends and supporters of the 
press showed up in large numbers (“a small army” according to the 
publisher’s web site) to help with clean up. The company was in the 
middle of assessing the damage when the city delivered its red-tag, 
which will hinder that process considerably.

AK Press has established a fire relief fund 
(http://www.gofundme.com/akpressfire) that it says will be evenly split 
three ways between the publisher, 1984 Printing, and affected residents.

About AK Press (taken from http://www.akpress.org/about.html):

AK Press is a worker-run collective that publishes and distributes 
radical books, visual and audio media, and other mind-altering material. 
We're small: seven people who work long hours for short money, because 
we believe in what we do. Decisions at AK Press are made collectively, 
from what we publish, to what we distribute and how we structure our 
labor. All the work, from sweeping floors to answering phones, is 
shared. When the telemarketers call and ask, "who's in charge?" the 
answer is: everyone. Our goal isn't profit (although we do have to pay 
the rent). Our goal is supplying radical words and images to as many 
people as possible. The books and other media we distribute are 
published by independent presses, not the corporate giants. We make them 
widely available to help you make positive (or, hell, revolutionary) 
changes in the world.

Contact:
For more information

Charles Weigl, outreach at akpress.org
510-295-4605

AK Press
674 23^rd Street
Oakland CA 94612

"We are not in the least afraid of ruins.... We carry a new world here, 
in our hearts." —Buenaventura Durruti
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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