This collection of photos was taken during the community fight for justice for the black youth murdered by BART Police in January of 2009 in Oakland, California.

CAPE (Coalition Against Police Executions)

This set of photographs is of the San Francisco-based immigrant and tenant rights organization, Comite de Vivienda San Pedro. Since 1985, St. Peter’s Housing Committee has worked in the mission district of San Francisco, CA, to help working class immigrant Latin@ tenants to build collective power, preserve and expand affordable housing and immigrant rights, prevent displacement and improve living conditions in their community through tenant rights counseling, political organizing, movement building, and the development of leadership within the communities they serve.

For 20 years, St Peters has been a part of San Francisco’s Mission District community, fighting for justice in housing, through legal counseling, organizing tenant unions, and advocating for just housing laws and policies.  Over the past few years, they have also expanded their work to take on the fight for immigrant rights.

This series of photos were taken during the Americas Social Forum (a strategy gathering of progressive social movements throughout Latin America) in Guatemala city, 2008. Most of the photographs are from two mass marches through the city. 

Guatemala, the host country for this gathering, has a history of brave resistance to imperialism and state repression. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Guatemalan people (largely Indigenous, of Mayan decent) lived under a brutal dictatorship. The dictatorship was installed by the United States government in order to overthrow Arbenz, a democratically elected progressive president who posed a threat to US corporations (particularly the United Fruit Company) exploiting Guatemala’s labor and natural resources. 

Arbenz nationalized and redistributed un-used land owned by the United Fruit Company, which had a practical monopoly on fruit production. In response, the United Fruit lobbied the US government to remove Arbenz. This led to a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954. Despite most Guatemalans’ support for Arbenz’s policies, some private sector leaders and the military began to believe that Arbenz represented a Communist threat and supported his overthrow. After the CIA coup, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed.

With full US support, over the following four decades state repression in Guatemala grew worse and worse. All public forms of dissent became impossible as more and more union, student, and community leaders were killed. After decades of repression, four principle groups took up arms against the regime. A thirty-five year civil war ensued.  The government went on a rampage, hunting anyone suspected of being a subversive. With US arms, funding, and training, the Guatemalan military disappeared, tortured, and murdered more than 200,000 civilians — including entire indigenous communities, who were the support-base for the Leftist Guerrillas who had taken up arms against the dictatorship. More people were murdered in the tiny country then all of the dirty wars throughout Latin America combined. 

After 35-years of war, peace accords were signed in 1996. Since then, the progressive social movements who so bravely fought against dictatorship and US imperialism, have been rebuilding and finding their new path after the trauma and loss of the previous century. 

Most of the photographs here were taken during a march through Guatemala City celebrating the legacy of the martyrs. Many of the organizers and participants were children or family members of those disappeared during the civil war.

This set of photographs were taken while sailing through the Caribbean in 2006/2007 aboard the sailing vessel Bahati. Over two years we covered 15,000 miles and passed through dozens of countries. Read more about our adventures at www.bahati.net.

This set of photos is from trekking through the Southern Alps of New Zealand.

These photographs were taken while sailing across the Pacific Ocean in 2007 aboard the sailing vessel Bahati. Over two years we covered 15,000 miles and passed through dozens of countries. Read more about our adventures at www.bahati.net.