Oppression Archives - We Are ILI

Omar ibn Said

Omar ibn Said was born around 1770 in an African region then called Futa Toro, near the Senegal River, which now forms Senegal’s northern border with Mauritania. After receiving 25 years of schooling in Africa, he was enslaved and transported to Charleston, South Carolina. Not long after his arrival and sale to a local planter, Said escaped and made his way to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he was imprisoned after entering a Christian church to pray. After garnering attention for writing on the walls of his prison cell in Arabic, Said became the legal property of General James Owen of..Read More

Tufara Waller Muhhamad January 8, 2022

Hurricane Katrina, 2005

Carol Zou April 23, 2005

United States Invasion of Iraq, 2003

Carol Zou April 23, 2003

Hurricane Hugo Hits SC September, 1989

Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, SC. It impacted the low wealth people who did not have insurance and small businesses. It impacted the poor Black Neighborhoods which were not protected against looting the same way as the other neighborhoods. Here on the picture a ILI fellow is going to check her tiny business downtown Charleston.

Gwyelene Gallimard September 1, 1989

The Gustafsen Lake standoff, August-September 1995

The Gustafsen Lake standoff was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ts’peten Defenders in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, at Gustafsen Lake (known as Ts’peten in the Shuswap language). The standoff began on August 18, 1995, and ended on September 17, 1995. The RCMP operation would end up being the most costly of its kind in Canadian history having involved 400 police officers and support from the Canadian Military (under Operation Wallaby). The predominantly indigenous occupiers believed that the “grazing rights privilege” ranch land on which they stood was both sacred space and part..Read More

Joel Garcia August 18, 1995

California Proposition 187, November 8, 1994

California Proposition 187 (also known as the Save Our State (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education, and other services in the State of California. Voters passed the proposed law at a referendum on November 8, 1994. The law was challenged in a legal suit and found unconstitutional by a federal district court. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis halted state appeals of this ruling.

Joel Garcia November 8, 1994