Long Beach 'Day of Action' Education Mobilization!

UPDATE: Linked at Blazing Cat Fur, Instapundit, and Theo Spark's!

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The Long Beach protests on March 4th were a far-cry from the anarcho-communist agitation that swept the Bay Area yesterday.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram has a nice report, "Teachers, Students Protest Education Cuts":

Thousands of teachers, students and community members rallied at Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College and at Wilson High School on Thursday in opposition to state funding cuts to education.

Similar rallies, organized by a coalition of labor unions, were held at educational institutions statewide to urge supporters to lobby California legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to oppose any further funding reductions.

And discussing my college:

Faculty members, staff and students met at Long Beach City College's Liberal Arts Campus around noon urging people to contact lawmakers to express opposition to cuts.

"Public education is under attack, and we need to do something about it," said LBCC faculty member DeWayne Sheaffer, president of the LBCC Community College Association, the faculty union.

LBCC student LaTonya Neal told the crowd that funding reductions hurt LBCC students by making it more difficult to get classes. Students services also are being cut.

"When that happens, it means that every student will be impacted," said Neal, a 45-year-old culinary arts student who hopes to transfer to Cal State Long Beach and eventually start her own restaurant.

Check the link for a photo-slideshow as well.

Okay, from some of my own coverage of events, at both LBCC and Wilson High School ...

Here's the scene in front of the new South Quad building a little after Noon. That's Professor Lynn Shaw at left and Professor Adrian Novotny, smiling, at right:

This is CCA President DeWayne Sheaffer:

Demonstrators were asked to wear red. Some obliged with team spirit beyond shades of the color spectrum:

This is Professor Elizabeth Hoffman, Vice President at CSULB Faculty Association. She came to LBCC to show solidarity:

This is Madison, an LBCC undergraduate, who is speaking with Professor Hoffman:

Hurtie Chukwudire, AFT Classified President LBCC. She's also pictured at the Press-Telegram article cited above.

Hurtie was getting fired up. She wanted to "take it to the streets" like folks did during the 1960s. She's waving a flyer for the "Marching for California's Future," which is a Bakersfield to Sacramento march for justice that was supposed to kick off today:

I had to get to a 1:00pm class. One more quick shot after grabbing my lecture materials back at my office:

After class, some students walked back with me for office hours. They got a kick out of the protest signs. The gentleman on the right in the first picture here (with the black polo shirt) is Ernesto. He's an Iraq war veteran who can't stand hardline radical groups like La Raza:

I held office hours until 4:00pm. After a quick run to the bank, I headed over to Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach for the big afternoon rally. Here's some of the signs at one of the information tables:

Long Beach's finest at the scene just in case the anarcho-communists got out of hand:

LBCC union boss DeWayne Sheaffer spoke again at the teachers' rally:

More union folks, from Cal State Dominguez Hills:

An estimated 2000 people came out, and it looks like it:

Californians for Justice, a hard-left activist group:

More shots of the crowd:

These are wonderful people, demonstrating against the cuts:

You can't see him, but that's Tom Morello, formerly of Rage Against the Machine, being swarmed by young activists during the rally's musical conclusion (look carefully for the end of the guitar fret board -- and that's him). Morello got folks fired up with "This Land is Your Land":

I posted Rage Against the Machine's "Wake Up" the other day, which features Morello at the clip:

One more big crowd shot before taking off:

Organizers back outside:

Walking back out to the car, I wanted to get a couple of shots of Woodrow Wilson High. Recall that famed English teacher Erin Gruwell taught at Wilson. Her book, Freedom Writers Diary, was the basis for the 2007 movie starring Hillary Swank. We get loads of Wilson students at LBCC. They have a lot of "inner city" stories to tell, but things have gotten better at Wilson since the early 1990s:

I'll have more later ...