Korean Peace – Resistance History Walk, November 11th, 2017
On Saturday, November 11, 2017, on Armistice Day, over one hundred people convened to take part in a Korea Peace Walk jointly sponsored by the Korea Policy Institute (KPI) and Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans (HOBAK), a dynamic and creative collective of Korean American activists working on peace and social justice issues in the Bay Area since 2009. Tracing a route beginning in downtown Oakland and ending in Temescal, the marchers stopped at historic sites of organized labor, black radical, anti-imperialist, and Korean community struggles to honor the peoples’ movements that have come before and that continue to inspire social justice work and organizing today. Marching under the banner of peace in Korea and resistance to Donald Trump’s warmongering stance toward North Korea, those who came together in solidarity represented a wide swath of Bay Area and international organizations: Vets for Peace, Anakbayan East Bay, Critical Resistance, Stop Urban Shield, Migrante Northern California, The Center for Political Education, Comfort Women Justice Coalition, One Heart for Justice, Committee for Korea Studies, Answer Coalition, Western States Legal Foundation, The Bikery, Nikkei resistors, Socialism and Liberation Party, Beyond the Bomb, VietUnity, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, U.S. Labor Against the War,Workers World Party, Women’s Magazine, and Q.U.I.T(Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism). Speakers at the various stops called for an end to the Korean War, no renewed U.S. aggression against North Korea, a dismantling of the genocidal U.S. and UN sanctions regime against North Korea, a stop to U.S. and South Korean joint war games, an end to Trump’s travel ban, and a repeal of South Korea’s national security law. All throughout, Dohee Lee of Puri Arts and the drumming troupe, Ieumsae, kept the heartbeat while marchers distributed informational flyers to members of the public.
Funds raised by the Peace Walk support the work of KPI and HOBAK – and you can still support!
Checks can be made to KPI with “KPI/HOBAK Peace Walk” (and, if relevant, the person whom you’re sponsoring) in the comment section.
Please mail your donations to the Korea Policy Institute, P.O. Box 2281, Berkeley, CA 94702.
You can also donate online and in your billing address include KPI/HOBAK on one line.
