Bay Area groups concerned about the nation’s authoritarian drift have organized a wide range of events and campaigns that are already drawing thousands of participants. There are at least four No Kings Day protests slated for West Contra Costa Saturday, including in San Pablo, El Cerrito, Hercules, and El Sobrante. This guide, which Richmondside will update periodically, provides information on protests, activism and ‘resistance’ movements in the East Bay.
Jump to: No Kings Day | Prop 50 | Resistance pods | Interfaith vigils | Court watch | Protecting day laborers | Emergency donations | If troops are deployed | Reporting ICE activity
No Kings Day march
In June, an estimated 4 million people showed up at more than 800 No Kings Day protests across the country. Part two comes this Saturday, and organizers predict that the East Bay will show up en masse. (The No Kings Day protests in June attracted thousands across the East Bay.) “The president thinks his rule is absolute,” Indivisible East Bay, one of the many organizers, said in announcing the October day of action. “But in America, we don’t have kings.”
How to stay safe at a protest or rally
Indivisible emphasizes the organizers’ commitment to nonviolence and asks anyone who plans to come not to bring weapons and to commit to deescalating any confrontations that may occur.
No Kings event in West Contra Costa County:
These protests have been organized by Indivisible West Contra Costa County:
- El Sobrante: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., San Pablo Dam Road and Appian Way
- San Pablo: 11 a.m. to noon, 2079 23rd St. (near Grocery Outlet)
- El Cerrito: Noon to 2 p.m., Cutting Boulevard and San Pablo Avenue
- Hercules: 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., San Pablo and Sycamore avenues.
No Kings event in Oakland:
- Saturday, Oct. 18, 11:30 a.m. to noon: Protesters are gathering at Wilma Chan Park, 810 Jackson Street, by the Lake Merritt BART, for welcome and music
- 12:30 p.m.: March to the Lake Merritt Amphitheater, near Lake Merritt Boulevard and 12th Street, for a speech by Mayor Barbara Lee, poetry from Berkeley’s poet laureate Aya de Leon, and a performance by the Brass Liberation Orchestra at the amphitheater. The event will wrap by 2 p.m.
No Kings events in Berkeley:
- At Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- At San Pablo and University, from 11 a.m. to noon.
- At the pedestrian overpass at the north end of Aquatic Park, from 1-3 p.m., where activists with Berkeley-based nonprofit Shark Stewards will be “in ocean creature costume with signs to protect endangered sharks, whales and seabirds.”
See a list of all “No Kings” protests.
Prop 50 campaign
Californians voted to create an independent redistricting commission in 2008. Now, at President Donald Trump’s urging, Texas and Missouri have redrawn their Congressional maps to favor Republicans, and six more GOP-led states are preparing to follow suit. But many of the California organizations leading the resistance to authoritarianism are heavily focused on encouraging the state’s voters to even the electoral scales — with California’s labor movement among those leading the charge.
The California Federation of Labor Unions — the umbrella organization for California labor unions — has been coordinating across the state to encourage people to vote yes on Nov. 4 on Prop 50, a ballot measure that would allow the state legislature to redraw the maps for the 2026 midterms. Under the measure, independent redistricting would be restored with the 2030 census.
A campaign has also emerged to oppose Prop 50, heavily backed by multimillionaire Charles Munger, Jr., who supported the original redistricting measure, arguing that the measure would repoliticize the districting process.
“We’ve seen during these last few months of the Trump Administration the attacks against public education; we’ve seen, with the Big Ugly Bill, the impacts on Medicaid and vital services for working families; and the unlawful use of the military invading cities, also primarily cities led by Black mayors; the attacks against collective bargaining rights – on and on the Trump Administration has attacked working families,” Keith Brown, secretary-treasure of the Alameda Labor Council, said. “The Yes on Proposition 50 campaign is a tangible way we can fight back.”
The central labor council is organizing volunteers to join Prop 50 Walks to canvass likely voters, phone banks to reach union households, and a November get-out-the vote campaign.
Prop 50 will appear on the ballot for the Nov. 4 statewide special election.
Bay Resistance pods
At Bay Get Ready, a day-long training session attended by an estimated 1,500 people in Oakland earlier this month, Jane Martin, the organizing director of Bay Resistance, encouraged people to join a pod, which she sees as a critical way for people to “show up for each other” while also being connected to “a larger movement and a larger strategy.”
“One of the things we’re learning from LA, DC and Chicago,” she said, “is there’s a value to having a presence in the streets in high-risk areas even before federal troops arrive, and having people in place to document civil rights violations.”
A pod, she said, is made up of 10 to 20 people and can be built from a pre-existing community — a congregation, a group of soccer parents, a knitting group — or people can just sign up and get assigned to a neighborhood pod based on their address. She said Bay Resistance already has more than 70 pods, the majority of them in the East Bay. Bay Resistance shares information about its campaigns and projects with the pods on a weekly basis — and pods can bring ideas to share with the network as well.
Bay Resistance is both registering existing groupings as pods and assigning individuals to pods based on the neighborhood they live in.
Interfaith vigils at immigration courts
Cindy McPherson, a leader with the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, says the coalition began its immigration court vigils last summer, “after the first time someone was abducted from the Concord court.” They knew they couldn’t stop ICE’s deportation campaign, but they wanted to offer witness and care for those showing up for appointments, and to show that “we see them and we’re standing for human dignity.”
Volunteers don’t chant, she said. They wear prayer stoles, they bring snacks or hot coffee, they hold signs that say things like “Keep Families Together,” and they sing. Some days, they give material aid, like the day a woman came out of the courthouse with her young daughter, in tears. Her husband had just been taken, she said; within a week he’d been deported to El Salvador. “Someone had access to money from his church and gave her $200 to get home,” she said, “and we connected her with the rapid response team and therapy and food banks.”
“It evolved into a kind of street chaplaincy,” she said.
McPherson, who is a congregant with Chochmat HaLev Synagogue in Berkeley, said no one needs special training to participate; there are two shifts each day and anyone can sign up for a date and time that works for them.
Vigil details:
- Vigils take place at Concord immigration court, 1855 Gateway Blvd., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. or noon to 2 p.m.
- Vigils take place at San Francisco immigration courts, 100 Montgomery St. and 630 Sansome St., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 8 to 10 a.m. or 11:45 to 2 p.m.
Court watchers
A group of autonomous court watchers has been spending a day a week at San Francisco’s immigration courthouse, at 100 Montgomery St., for months. “Anyone can get involved,” says independent activist Ernesto Reyes. “Anybody can show up and have a role. It’s really awesome. I just showed up for the first time with my housemates.”
The volunteer shifts began last summer on Tuesdays and gained momentum when ICE arrests evaporated. “Last Tuesday,” he said, “we celebrated 13 weeks with no abductions on Tuesdays.” A brass band showed up to play that day; on other days, poets come to offer readings.
The idea, said Reyes, who is himself an immigrant from Peru, is to have a visible presence supporting immigrants “and to show ICE that if they come in and try to abduct a member of the community there will be resistance.” The structure is decentralized and horizontal. Some volunteers staff a table with resources, while Reyes and other Spanish-speaking volunteers stand by the door with a sign that says, “Tienes audiencia? Te podemos acompañar gratis.” (Do you have an appointment? I can accompany you for free.) He says a lot of times people arrive for appointments alone, feeling nervous, and he’s already accompanied around 20 people inside, sitting with them in the courtroom for 10 minutes, or for three hours, depending on how quickly their name was called.
“There’s something we say a lot in our chants,” Reyes said. “Solo el pueblo salva el pueblo — only the people can save the people — and I think that really rings true for us.”
People can also reach out to the Social Justice Collaborative to volunteer in its court accompaniment program. Helpers provide moral support and guidance for immigrants attending court hearings. The organization, which provides free and low-cost immigrant legal services, trains volunteers to offer non-legal assistance and close resource gaps.
Court watch details:
- Court watch takes place Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 100 Montgomery St., San Francisco
- Orientations take place every other Thursday, Oct. 23, Nov. 6, Nov. 20, etc., at the Democratic Socialists of America office at 1916 McAllister St., 7 p.m.
‘Adopt a day laborer corner’
In the eyes of the NDLON, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Los Angeles was “a testing ground for what will come soon across the country.”
Home Depots were the targets of multiple ICE raids in Los Angeles. As Pablo Alvarado, the group’s co-executive director, pointed out at one recent NDLON training, day laborers are particularly visible, and therefore particularly vulnerable. “They have been the subject of so many attacks from many different forces, including police, and now ICE, often white supremacist organizations come and attack them, and unscrupulous employers take advantage of their vulnerability and hire them and fail to pay them.” So NDLON has invited volunteers to identify a local Home Depot or another spot where day laborers gather and commit to showing up regularly. “Be present,” the organizers say. “Be consistent. Build relationships and offer protection.”
“We’re not just defending immigrants, but the right to due process,” Alvarado said. “And by defending the right to due process, we defend democracy. And in this moment, democracy is in the balance.”
In Berkeley, people can donate funds directly or drop off items like gently used clothing, personal protective equipment or office supplies at the Multicultural Institute, an organization that supports day laborers in West Berkeley. They also accept volunteers who can help tutor local youth and help prepare food for laborers on Fridays.
‘Adopt a corner’ details:
- Observers are visiting sites such as local Home Depot locations.
- NDLON is registering volunteers who adopt corners and holding virtual meetings to show people how it’s done.
Emergency donations
Faith in Action East Bay, a multi-faith coalition, has been training congregations on what steps they can legally take to protect themselves from ICE; they recently trained nearly three dozen Oakland clergy through the auspices of the Mayor’s Interfaith Advisory Council on how clergy can mark spaces in their buildings as private so that federal agents can’t enter without a judicial warrant — and how to recognize one.
“We grew up with the Golden Rule, we do unto others as we would have them do unto us,” Pastor Todd Benson, the group’s executive director, said. “We need to take care of each other. We need to take care of those of us who are immigrants, building what Dr. King called the beloved community.” Benson said congregants or clergy seeking training can reach out to Faith in Action.
The group is also raising funds for families where the breadwinner has been detained or deported (After hitting its goal of $50,000, Faith in Action is now hoping to raise $65,000.)
If the National Guard is deployed
Bay Resist is still coordinating with its local partners on where to gather if the National Guard is deployed in Oakland, but if federal troops are deployed to San Francisco, which billionaires Elon Musk and Marc Benioff have called for in recent weeks, Bay Resist is calling for a mass show of unity at the Embarcadero that day and gatherings at local public libraries across the Bay Area the day after.
Details:
- Organizers plan to gather at the San Francisco Embarcadero at 5 p.m. the day a troop deployment begins.
- Vigils at local public libraries are planned for the day after, 5 to 7 p.m.
Berkeleyside reporter Vanessa Arredondo contributed reporting to this story. This guide will be revised and updated periodically. Please email esther@oaklandside.org with any events or campaigns you’d like to see listed or with informational updates. Richmondside is a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom committed to editorial independence.
