Website Theme Update

Our website has been due some changes for a while. An update to the theme being used, Mantra, has to be worked through and some of the content has to be reorganized. Occupy Detroit is evolving and the website needs to be doing the same. We need more people able to work in WordPress as writers and organizers of the site.

If you are interested in getting involved on the website, please contact Stephen at fuzzytek@occupy-detroit.us with some information about yourself. Things like how long you’ve lived in Detroit, your interests, how comfortable you are with writing, photography, streaming video, HTML, …

It would also be great to hear through comments what people would like to see from the website. Be prepared to contribute a bit when you have suggestions. This is a participatory group!

Eviction Defense (critical): Jennifer Britt

Emergency Meeting to Defend Jennifer Britt’s Home

We’re down to the wire in the campaign to keep Jennifer Britt in her home. She is currently in negotiations with a non-profit community organization which may be able to purchase the home at a reduced price from Fannie Mae (which holds title after buying the mortgage at full value from Flagstar) and then sell the home back to Jennifer on favorable terms.  But Fannie Mae could move to evict Jennifer and her family as early as this week. Come to an emergency meeting this Tuesday, July 3, at 5pm for an update and a discussion of next steps. Bring friends and neighbors! Continue reading

OUTRAGE IN DETROIT: Million Hoodie March

Trayvon

BE THERE. BE TOGETHER.

Justice for Trayvon Martin rally, Monday, 6 p.m., at Hart Plaza on the Detroit River. Details here.

March 26 is a national day of action for anyone who would like to wear a hoodie without being killed. It’s a national day of action for everyone who is outraged that shooting another person just because they don’t like their looks can be called self-defense.

Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old Miami kid who was shot to death on Feb. 26 in a Florida scrub town by a man who found his appearance suspicious.

Trayvon, visiting family in Sanford, Florida, was walking in the rain, carrying a pack of Skittles and a can of iced tea. He was unarmed. He was wearing a gray hoodie. He was black.

George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old man who shot Trayvon, has been called a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain — with a 9mm handgun.  In an edited copy of his 911 call to police, Zimmerman called the teenager “a real suspicious guy” and said: “They always get away.” Zimmerman sounds breathless. The wind is buffeting his phone. The dispatcher asks Zimmerman if he’s following the youth. “Yes,” Zimmerman says. The dispatcher tells him not to. “We don’t need you to do that.”

Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend, who was on the phone with him at the time, described his end of a confrontation … [read more] Continue reading