Social justice groups link to Occupy movement

The involvement of civil and economic rights groups transcend solidarity support — certain organizations are providing in-kind donations to the protestors.

“Whenever we have an event and there’s extra food, we’ll take it down to the Occupy Oakland,” said Jakada Imani, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland. “One of the issues is that they can’t cook out there and there’s also not a lot of food all the time, so we want to make sure that they had food....”

Although various local organizations have been offering support to the members of Occupy encampments and finding support from them, their leaders point out that their organizations are constituents in a larger movement impacting not just the communities they serve, but everyone suffering from fiscal inequalities.

“Movements are bigger than organizations, and they are bigger than individuals,” said Imani.

So there are organizations participating in Oakland, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Colorado, but it’s not about those organizations. You’re not hearing their names. There are labor unions involved in this process and you’re not hearing their names — it’s not local X, Y and Z — because that’s actually not what’s important,” he said. “What’s important is the broader message and the broader work.”

Read the whole post at
Social Justice Groups Engage Occupy Movement
by Ambika Kandasamy at New America Media