By the time of the downtown convergence, the number of participants had dwindled to about 50 or 60, a far cry from the multitude of participants at last year's March 4 Day of Action for Public Education. "Maybe everyone who was here last year, the people who really cared because it impacted them directly, got priced out of education this year," speculated one marcher.

Nonetheless, students from UCR, Riverside Community College, San Bernardino Valley College, Mt. San Antonio College, Cal Poly Pomona, and their supporter gave passionate speeches in support of their cause.

At one point, an angry woman approached the crowd and demanded that the sound be cut off, despite the organizers having filed for the appropriate permits. She wore no uniform, produced no identification, and made no claim to any authority to shut down the rally other than claiming to work for the City of Riverside.

Student organizers adeptly handled the attempted repression by using a rotating grab-bag of tactics, including strategic ignoring, engaging her, sending her to talk to different people, and pretending to comply. It was genius.

Take a look at some of the action and at what the speakers said:

March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 1



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 2



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 3



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 4



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 5



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 6



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 7



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 8



March 2 Day of Action for Education Riverside - 9

Rally with chants

Drummers

Street protest

Title for our education is not for sale!

Chanting

Robbing Our Hood

Bill Hedrick, known to the immigrant community as "Sr. Bill"

Free UCR!

Band

Uni(Versi)ty

Metalhead with Chavez quote

Save our health and human services

Queer undocumented students are the UC and CSU systems!

Education is a human right no matter where you were born

Attempted repression

Speaker from crowd

Speaker from a radical Filipina organization--the only speaker who tied the budget problem to the capitalist system!

Means and Ways, not Meanies and Gueyes