PHOTO/RUDY RUIZ
SACRAMENTO, CA — On March 18, 2018, Sacramento Police drew their guns and killed Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s back yard. Officers had been dispatched to Meadowview, one of Sacramento’s most diverse and impoverished neighborhoods, on a vandalism call.
Stephon Clark was 22 years young, African American, and unarmed. They came around the corner of the house and fired recklessly into the dark, twenty shots. They murdered him.
This year, both the Sacramento District Attorney and the California Attorney General let the killers go scot-free.
On Saturday, March 6, 2019, the day of the DA’s announcement, Stephon’s mother, Se’quette Clark, spoke to the press. “It is not right, it is not right,” she said, her voice steady and determined despite her terrible grief and rage. “The DA has never charged an officer with homicide. My son is the one who is going to break the mold because we are not going to accept this.” She added, “This is just the beginning – the fight for justice. The fight will continue.”
On March 8, in one of many demonstrations, peaceful protestors poured through one of Sacramento’s wealthy neighborhoods. Squads of officers in riot gear arrested protestors as they tried to disperse, blocking their way, handcuffing and detaining 84 people, including journalists, religious leaders, and bystanders. On Tuesday, the protests continued at the City Council meeting.
Stephon’s activist brother, Stevante Clark, is “all for the protests.” In an interview with the People’s Tribune, he spoke of the future of the movement, describing a vision of building an “infrastructure” of organizations in the neighborhoods struggling against police violence, brutality, and abuse.
“What do we do now?” he asked. “Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King had a mission, he mastered the fundamentals—outreach, organization, unity. Look at the Black Panther Party. They mobilized entire neighborhoods.
“Today in the Black community especially, we don’t have ‘uniforms’—I mean, we don’t have organizations and connected structures that can carry out the fight for justice at all levels. The City Council and the DA take thousands from police unions to get elected. They can’t, they don’t represent us.
“We need to unify – this isn’t just about Black and Brown people. When I first spoke out, I said, ‘The rents are too high. The gang banging has to stop. Poverty is out of control.’
“Our communities have been segregated, born into poverty, born into the projects, our leaders taken and killed, our labor, our history, our culture stolen, our people treated as less than human – like slavery, when each man was counted as only 3/5 of a person.
“We need to arm our communities with the right information, the right political tools, not just to take out the oppressor, but to build organizations and new political leadership that can represent our values.
“My brother Stephon now walks our streets as a prophet. He is the new political system. He is radical policy reform. He is solidarity. He is strength in numbers, in unity, in power. Stephon lives.”
I agree with everything Stevante said. Change is coming whether they like it or not. The younger generation are ready for big change but they need the right directions and leader who can relate to them because the older people are set up and blinded to the situations that goes around them. I believe Stephone Clark’s spirit is here with us to guide his brother, family and the community that is devastated by the unfair justice system.