Karla Zombro came to offer more than activist skills. She had a framework.

Hundreds of East Bay residents descended on Oakland Tech on Sunday, Oct. 5, and by 9:30 a.m., a line stretched halfway down the block . People in sneakers and Dr. Martens and flip flops, in keffiyehs and hoodies and bike helmets and cat t-shirts, were waiting to check in for Bay Get Ready, a day-long session on how to “get trained and organized to fight back.” First they filled a 950-seat auditorium, then hundreds spilled into an overflow room. Then, after an opening song, they settled in for a briefing on authoritarianism.

The old expectations, of flawed but functioning government systems, were rapidly falling away, Zombro, the movement training director for We Are California, said, and that called for new strategies. Her training partner, Jane Martin, the organizing director of Bay Resistance, threw up a slide listing the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime and walked the crowd through each one.

Direct investigations against critics? Check. Domestic military deployments? Check and check. By the time she got to number six, “The autocrat won’t leave” — check — and asked those assembled whether they thought the United States had entered authoritarianism, nearly every hand in the room shot up.

“The first thing is everyone needs to snap out of it,” Zombro told The Oaklandside later. “We are not dealing with the same deck of cards that we had last year.” She had arrived in Oakland from a similar training in Bakersfield, and has also led them in LA, where she’s based, and in San Diego, Bakersfield, and Fresno. “We need to take these moments of overreach and turn them into backfire moments.”

A packed crowd on Oct. 5 at Oakland Technical High School for “Bay Get Ready,” a noncooperation training led by We Are California, Bay Resist, and other organizations. Credit: Esther Kaplan/The Oaklandside

That Sunday morning, she and Martin turned to the question of what effective authoritarian resistance has looked like in places like South Korea, where after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law last December, young people flooded the streets with K-pop light sticks to face down military vehicles and labor federations called emergency meetings to consider a strike. Scholars of authoritarianism, they said, had identified widespread noncompliance as key. Mass protests, like No Kings, were critical, they said, and so were all the forms of noncompliance that are now starting to emerge across the country: the tenant who sheltered a Venezuelan mother and child when ICE raided their Chicago apartment building; the Washington DC jury that refused to indict the man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent; the elected officials in New York City insisting on their right to visit ICE detainees; and the 1.7 million people who canceled their Disney+ subscriptions after the network suspended Jimmy Kimmel under pressure from the Trump administration.

Critical, also, Martin and Zombro said, were forms of resistance that engage people from all walks of life, people who might never take to the streets. They encouraged participants to form pods with their neighbors to have a structure in place for future action. And they encouraged people to follow the lead of activists in Los Angeles, DC, Chicago, and Portland, by bringing the joy — whether it’s ringing cowbells outside a hotel housing ICE agents, donning frog costumes for a detention center vigil, or playing go-go music in the streets.

Bay Area organizers concerned about the nation’s authoritarian drift have organized a wide range of events and campaigns that are already drawing thousands of participants. We’ll update this post periodically as developments unfold.

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 Oakland will again be in the house. (Oakland’s June No Kings Day protest attracted thousands.) “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.”

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.

March details:

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.

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. Oaklandside is a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom whose only role with Proposition 50 is to report on it. 

“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 the training at Oakland Tech earlier this month, 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 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.

Vigils take place at Concord immigration court, 1855 Gateway Blvd., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. or 12 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.”

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 Street, 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.”

‘Adopt a corner’ details:

Observers are visiting sites such as local Home Depot locations, including 4000 Alameda Ave. in Oakland.

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 Oakland partners on where to gather if the National Guard is deployed here, 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.

If there are ICE raids

The Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership, or ACILEP, is a collaborative program launched in February in response to the rise in targeted immigration enforcement. ACILEP connects people who’ve been arrested with legal aid and helps verify or dispel potential ICE sightings in cities across the county. The organization has also been training rapid responders who can head out to confirmed sightings.

Hotline details:

The ACILEP hotline at (510) 241-4011 is currently staffed Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; after a fresh injection of county funds, it will soon expand into weekend hours.

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. The Oaklandside is a nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom committed to editorial independence. 

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