2015 Ruckus Highlights

Ruckus helped support The Justice for Alex Nieto Coalition, which brought together a Black & Brown unity blockade and occupation of the San Francisco Police Department this past March.  This creative direct action involved live music, performance, and street theater. Activists took over the streets to put the four police officers responsible for Alex Nieto’s murder on trial.

2015 Training for Indigenous Direct Action Organizers

Ruckus and the Indigenous People’s Power Project (IP3) celebrated its 10th anniversary with a Training for Indigenous Direct Action Trainers at Woodbine Ecology Center in Colorado this past September.

Over 30 amazing organizers from around North America, from critical fights including the Apache Stronghold; resistance to Keystone XL; resistance to extreme energy projects in Alaska, the Utah Plateau, Montana, the NWT in Canada and more; the fight to protect Mauna Kea among a few.

Other major 2015 Program Accomplishments

• Ruckus helped co-launch the Combahee Alliance which is convening a 2-year direct action training series that begins in 2016 for People of Color committed to the movement for Black Lives.

• Ruckus convened the 2015 Network Tactical Skillshare where members of the Ruckus network gathered to share tactical action skills, learn from recent action campaigns and innovate new strategies for our direct action work in 2016.

• Ruckus supported a multicultural and multi-affinity group under the banner of Third World for Black Power to occupy and block the Oakland Federal Building as part of the 96 hours of direct action to #reclaim MLK day this past January.

• In Feb. 2015, along with Moccasins on the Ground, trained 100 Indigenous activists at the Cheyenne Sioux Tribe Reservation in SD. This resulted in a 400 person march on July 26 at the SD Public Utilities Commission hearing on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline to fight this disastrous project.

• In May, IP3 organized Indigenous activists to participate in the “Shell No!” blockade in Seattle, WA. They joined other “kayaktivists” to stop Shell Oil’s drilling rigs that were laid over on their way to drill in the fragile Arctic Sea.

• 2015 Direct Action Curriculum Expansion: Ruckus convened curriculum writing gatherings to update our direct action curriculum in the areas of juvenile justice, migrant rights, creative resistance and Indigenous People’s Power Project over the course of this year.

• Ruckus supported creative direct actions on behalf of the Indigenous Delegation to the UN Conference of Parties/ Climate Negotiations this winter in Paris.

Who we’ve supported this year:

• Indigenous People’s Power Project
• Indigenous Environmental Network
• School of Unity and Liberation – National Youth Organizing Training Institute
• Moccasins on the Ground – Training for Trainers
• Apache Stronghold
• The Fight to Protect Mauna Kea
• Existence Is Resistance
• The BlackOUT! Collective
• Black Lives Matter
• Ferguson Artivists
• Anti Police Terror Project
• #Asians4BlackLives
• Climate Justice Alliance
• Grassroots Global Justice
• Buddhist Peace Fellowship
• Organizing Bridges – Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley
• Hawai’i Center for Food Safety
• Hawai’i SEED
• We Charge Genocide
• Veterans for Peace
• Save Community College of SF Coalition
• 901 Jefferson Tenant Association
• Bay Area Solidarity Action Team (BASAT)
• SURJ – Bay Area
• ENLACE
• 350.org
• Gulf South Rising
• Forest Ethics
• Patagonia
• 2015 Greenpeace Action Camp
• Shell No!