Stories and Poems from the January 2006 Street Spirit Publication

What is Street Spirit? - Click Here | To read all articles and poems from this issue of Street Spirit, please visit Street Spirit's Website at http://www.thestreetspirit.org/.

To read stories by BOSS participants, click here.

Articles, stories, poems, statements, and such sharing first-person accounts and opinions do not necessarily reflect BOSS's organizational views. We offer this site as a forum to share all views, particularly those not generally heard in mainstream outlets.

The MTC Pushes Justice to the Back of the Bus - Fifty years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, transportation equity is still a crucial issue for communities of color across the country. While legal segregation of public transportation is a thing of the past, one only has to step onto any urban bus system to see that racial inequality is alive and well in the United States.

Religious Leaders Decry Newsom's Persecution of Homeless People - Since entering office, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has received little but praise from the city's media, presenting the public with a portrait of a compassionate friend of the poor. Yet last month, a group of some of San Francisco's most respected religious leaders gathered to highlight the contradictory aspects of Newsom's homeless policy, including a dramatic spike in the number of citations issued under his administration for sleeping outdoors.

Looking for Work While Struggling to Survive - "This administration doesn't give a damn. They don't care. Why are our jobs going across the water? We were American workers, now we're American consumers. And how are we gonna make money to be a consumer (when) we ain't got no jobs here? What's wrong with this picture?"

We Choose to Remember Them - The Nameless and Faceless Deaths in Our Midst - The preparation committee for the St. Mary's Homeless Vigil went in search of a non-existent count. The question was how many homeless people died on the streets in Alameda County last year.

Rosa Parks and the Transportation Justice Movement - On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a department store seamstress and volunteer secretary of the NAACP, refused to give up her seat. This heroic act became a catalyst for change: it sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and 13 months later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery’s segregation laws were unconstitutional. 

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