Occupy Oakland’s stubborn resistance as the final (or at least most visible) ember of the Occupy movement is the leitmotif for Jonathan Mahler’s
NYT magazine piece, posted today. Its title: “Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America.” It’s accompanied by a stunning photo spread from Peter Bohler, including the Occupy street scene above. An excerpt:
Why are radicals so inexorably drawn to Oakland? The cheap rents don’t hurt (free, if you’re willing to squat in an abandoned house or industrial space, and hundreds apparently are). Oakland is urban, dangerous and poor — fertile social conditions for inciting revolution. What’s more, it has a long, easily romanticized history of militancy. America’s last citywide strike, in 1946, took place there; the Black Panthers were born in Oakland; and David Hilliard, a former Black Panthers chief of staff, still gives three-hour tours of the movement’s local landmarks and sells his own line of Black Panthers hot sauce: “Burn Baby Burn.”
Places
