The long radical tradition of Los Angeles protests
Let the kids rebel
Today Ricci Sergienko, a lawyer and movement organizer with the People's City Council Los Angeles, an abolitionist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist collective, joins us to write about the student walkouts going on across the city over the past two weeks. Find them on Instagram here and Bluesky here.
If you missed the most recent issues of Hell World please also read Annie Howard's review of the forthcoming The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman.
Luke O’Neil
In the book’s introduction Schulman writes that “Solidarity is the action behind the revelation that each of us, individually, are not the only people with dreams.” Prodding her readers to see other people’s needs as real has long been one of Schulman’s most urgent demands, particularly those whose material privileges may otherwise blind them to those with less. A simple ability to even care about someone else’s hardship, and the reality that so many people in the United States are suffering, is an inescapable conflict in our country, and one that recurs with sickening frequency. The question of who chooses to care, and how they go about fighting for others who may have much less animates The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.
And here's me last week on Democrats (surprisingly!) not meeting the moment with the urgency it begs for.
Luke O’Neil
All I have been saying for the past ten years or so is please please just try to fight. And on top of that make sure everyone knows you are fighting. Even if it's a hopeless battle. People love that shit. People are inspired by that shit. That is one of the singular myths that we have at the foundation of our entire culture. Going into battle despite great odds. Swinging until your last breath.
You also might appreciate this piece about five years ago this week when I went to see Bernie Sanders open for The Strokes in New Hampshire.
Luke O’Neil
The last time I had hope was right around then too it was at the University of New Hampshire and Michelle and I had driven up there for a Bernie Sanders rally headlined by The Strokes one of our favorite bands in the world. When we got there the line was so long outside and it was so cold the type of cold where you draft off of strangers’ body heat and use them to hide from the wind and don’t think twice about it. Inside the lineup of electrifying speakers like Cornel West and AOC and Bernie himself and Nina Turner explained to a crowd of around 7,000 people in no uncertain terms that a better country was in fact possible and that we were this close to getting there.
Turner asked us all to raise one hand for ourselves so I did and we all did. Then raise another hand for someone else she said and she asked us to fight for someone we don’t know as hard as we would for ourselves and for a couple weeks there when things were still normal I actually thought that enough of us in this country meant it but I was stupid to think that.
Later on in the night The Strokes played “New York City Cops” and everyone crashed the stage and it seemed like the beginning of a new era and it was just not in the way I thought it was going to be and then we walked back to the car along the slick hilly iced-over streets of Durham taking the tiniest possible steps hoping we wouldn’t slip and break something because if we got hurt we might not be able to afford the medical bills and I wondered what it might be like to not have to worry about things like that anymore and I thought something is going to change man and it was about to indeed just not in the way I thought it was.
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Long live the student intifada
by Ricci Sergienko
For the second week in a row now thousands of high school students in Los Angeles have led walkouts to protest Trump’s fascist immigration policies. The spontaneous and organic nature of these protests has been beautiful to see. While there are many different angles from which to view this recent spark of activism – and I recommend coverage from great local sources like Janette Villafana at LA TACO, Boyle Heights Beat, and AO Dream – I thought I might look at them through the lens of the history of protest movements here in Los Angeles. And also note that the students hitting the streets here have the full support of a young rebel who grew into a movement organizer and lawyer. They should have yours too.
We shouldn’t let the coverage of these protests get watered down. What we’ve seen in LA is rebellious youth-led action, shutting down streets and freeways, not backing down from police, fireworks, tons of graffiti, and more. The youth have all the autonomy they need to organize on their own but we should give them the tools they need to grow the movement. We should also protect them from Democratic party grifters and liberal nonprofits. They see the world they’re being offered and they’ve had enough. They know that Joe Biden deported more people than Donald Trump, have heard that Barack Obama was nicknamed the “Deporter-In-Chief”, and are well aware that neither of them ever got around to shutting down Guantanamo.
LA STUDENT WALK OUT: Students are back out in front of city hall for another day of anti-ICE, immigrants rights protest 👀👀👀 Solidarity with the youth!
— People’s City Council - Los Angeles (@pplscitycouncil.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T22:22:37.677Z
Could these protests have more direction and focused messaging? Possibly. However, taking action is step one. Defying power and fighting back are important lessons that we should all learn. We should continue to encourage these kids to be fearless. Another part of our role here should be to help them understand that they are taking part in the long radical tradition of Los Angeles.
As someone who was out in the streets in 2020 up through the anti-genocide protests on campuses (and is still out here today), this has been incredibly inspiring to witness. I love the youthful energy, but I’m annoyed by all the armchair quarterbacks who think they know what’s best. I’ve seen a bunch of people say things like “where was this energy in November?” which is hilarious considering these are teens out there protesting. Also, I hate to break it to you all, fascism is not merely an electoral phenomenon, thus it cannot be “defeated” at the ballot box. As George Jackson reminds us, fascism has already been here.
These recent protests come not long after the Palestine solidarity movement student intifada that sprung up across college campuses last spring, which Los Angeles students had a crucial part in. 93 people were arrested on the first day of the USC encampment. The UCLA encampment stood for nearly a week as the students were relentlessly attacked by zionists and then went face to face with the police for hours as they attempted to raid the camp. Students at Cal State LA occupied a building and built beautiful barricades around their encampment, which lasted nearly 50 days.
Read more about the UCLA encampment in Hell World here:
Luke O’Neil
The youth taking action right now are spiritually connected to that student intifada and to the 2020 George Floyd Uprisings. That revolt, sparked in Minneapolis, led to Los Angeles being in the streets all summer. This, of course, was a result of years and decades of on the ground organizing in LA, honoring the martyrs and fighting back against the police. Part of the 2020 struggle in LA was LAUSD students protesting and demanding police out of schools. Shoutout in particular to Students Deserve.
Students should also understand their connection to student-led immigration related protests here in LA. In 1994, over 10,000 young people from more than 30 LAUSD schools walked out to protest Proposition 187, which sought to punish undocumented immigrants by denying them certain services, including access to public healthcare and education. In 2006, nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California also staged walkouts to protest proposed immigration legislation, blocking traffic on four freeways.
We have to acknowledge the beautiful show of solidarity and community we’ve seen over the past week. Beginning on Sunday, February 2, Angelenos headed downtown to protest – causing huge disruptions by taking over the streets and eventfully shutting down the 101 freeway for several hours. It was a perfect depiction of what makes Los Angeles the greatest city in the world. People tagged “FUCK ICE” all over the freeway in a shared multi-cultural and intergenerational struggle, with both young and old faces in the crowd. The hot dog vendors even made their way onto the freeway.
LA Shit
— People’s City Council - Los Angeles (@pplscitycouncil.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T00:14:03.605Z
As the week began students from East LA (shoutout to Garfield & Roosevelt High) walked out of class and marched to LA city hall. There was a large turnout on Monday, not just in LA but across the country, in observance of “a day without immigrants.” The one critique I would like to add here is: NO FUCKING TUNNELS!! On Monday night, a group of protesters were led down a tunnel downtown, which, of course, led to them being kettled and trapped, surrounded by LAPD on both sides. Please take it from someone who has been out in the streets (we’ve seen it happen before) – no tunnels, no bridges, don’t get kettled! If you’re headed out to the streets, you should understand police formations and how they move. Check out this post for more information.
It’s noteworthy that these protests started off being led primarily by East LA (Garfield and Roosevelt) high schools, as students from those schools in 1968 walked out of their classrooms to protest inequality for Mexican Americans in the public education system. As many as 15,000 people joined in, including students from other high schools, teachers, parents and community activists. The police confronted the demonstrators with violence, and thirteen organizers were arrested.
A few years before the 1968 student walkouts was the 1965 Watts Rebellion, where the arrest of Marquette Frye, a 21-year-old black man, kicked off one of the most destructive uprisings in the country’s history. There was six days of violence, 34 deaths and more than $40 million in damaged property. This led to LAPD becoming increasingly more militarized, which has continued to get worse every year. The Watts Rebellion was the most severe riot in the city’s history until the 1992 LA riots, which Mike Davis dubbed “the LA Intifada.” The largest urban uprising in the history of the country lasted five days, amounting to $1 billion in property damage, fifty-three deaths and thousands of injuries.
If you want to understand those 1992 LA Riots then you have to keep the approach of the 1984 LA Olympics in mind. (Or the nonprofit created after the riots called “Rebuild LA”… eerily familiar to the situation we are facing after the destructive fires in January).
Has anyone told you that the Olympics are coming back to LA in 2028? If we’re connecting what’s currently happening to the world around us, “keeping ICE out of LA” means cancelling the Olympics. The Olympics are a National Special Security Event, which means all agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (ICE, CBP, SS, & others) are already here, working with local law enforcement. We know that the feds and police will target vulnerable communities in Los Angeles. The Olympics will only bring more violence to them.
Back to 2025. The momentum did not slow down once the protests got rolling. At least a thousand students marched and rallied at city hall on Tuesday last week. LAPD said that students were throwing rocks and bottles at them, but every time I’ve been at a protest, it has been the police escalating and causing violence, so I can only assume, if true, that was the case this time and the students were just protecting themselves. It's an important lesson for everyone hitting the streets: look out for one another. Also, cops lie.
On Wednesday more schools around LA walked out. It was no longer just East LA and downtown students. There were students in the San Fernando Valley involved. Santa Ana, El Monte, and Lancaster students also got in the mix. Some Eastside schools reported a drop to 32% attendance amid the protests.
Thursday the protests really exploded across the city and county. Dozens of schools and thousands of students took to the streets. It should be noted, and I don’t think this has gotten the proper media attention, that these protests are widespread across the county. The youth are seeing each other walk out and organically joining their comrades. San Fernando Valley students were back out there early in the day and East LA students once again rallied and marched to city hall. Hundreds of Van Nuys High School left campus and marched to Van Nuys City Hall. When I got back to my office in Ktown, I saw students walking out of school with signs of their own. On the Westside students from Santa Monica High, Venice High, Culver City High, University High, Malibu High, and Westwood joined in on the action. Hawthrone and Downey students also represented.
On Friday more than 500 students in Long Beach walked out. One student’s sign said “my parents fought for my future, so I will fight for theirs.” 30 miles away in Pasadena, hundreds of students from five different high schools walked out mid school day and marched to Pasadena City Hall. So too did ones from Bell, Downey, Lawndale, Montebello, Maywood, South Gate, Orange County, Santa Ana, Pomona, six different schools in Anaheim, Riverside and San Bernardino to name a few.
Amidst all of this there have been stories about “fake” ICE agents approaching LAUSD students. This is why it’s important to never talk to police/feds (real or fake) and to know your rights. The National Lawyers Guild and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center have provided some valuable Know Your Rights resources here and here.
There are a few challenges that our movements have historically faced. First is the police/state. Second are the naysayers and liberals that like to tell protesters to do things “the right way” and emphasize “peaceful protest.” I’ve seen many “peaceful protestors” get thrown around and beat up by the police. There’s no such thing as a peaceful protest when you’re surrounded by police in riot gear. The police are not there to keep you safe. Which leads me to another reminder: be water. When you place your body somewhere at a protest, consider the ways that the police will try to surround you, any possible exit routes, and any potential things to move in order to stop the cops from pinning you down. The goal of taking action is not getting arrested, and you should do your best to avoid it.
The state’s goal is to silence you and stop you from recognizing your own power in speaking out and taking action against injustices. But guess what? There are many of us out here still fighting. Join us.
I’m already inspired by the youth and excited to see what’s next. They should continue to be bold and fearless. “Adults” do not need to be “dictating” what the students do, we should be supporting the young people in our lives and encourage them to organize their peers and take action.
Ricci Sergienko is digital strategist, lawyer and organizer in Los Angeles (People’s City Council).
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