Contact: Elinor Anton
205 13th Street, Suite 3000B
San Francisco, CA 94013
phone (415) 255-2414
fax (415) 255-2415
pager (415) 253-0706
Freedom Fall '96, a joint project of the Feminist Majority and the Stop Prop 209 Campaign, is a grass-roots voter education and guerrilla visibility project fueled by college-age students from California and around the nation, who have given up their fall semesters to put a stop to Prop 209.
In the days leading up to the election, we have will be staging many events to get the message out to California voters that Prop 209 is a deceptive piece of legislation designed to roll back thirty years of Civil Rights progress. Included in these events will be weekly rallies lamenting the death of affirmative action and the rights of women and guerrilla postering of signs illustrating the proponents of Prop 209 (David Duke, Pete Wilson, the KKK) versus those who are against it (Colin Powell, Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem, Delores Huerta) and asking voters who's side they are on. We have also planned a "Don't Let the Dream Die" bus tour of campuses throughout the state featuring Jesse Jackson and Freedom Fall activists.
Student activists from across the country first came to California to participate in Freedom Summer, a project of the Feminist Majority and the Stop Prop 209 campaign, and were based throughout California. Freedom Summer activists arrived in San Francisco and the Bay Area in early June, and conducted voter registration drives, fundraising events, and information sessions about the dangerous effects of Prop 209 throughout the summer.
This fall, the work of the Freedom Summer activists has been taken up and buttressed by a new group of Freedom Fall activists. The Freedom Fall activists have given up a semester of college and come to California from all over the United States to further the work started by the Freedom Summer activists. In addition to the projects that Freedom Summer worked on, Freedom Fall activists are giving presentations to classrooms throughout the region, and are working on a major Election Day Project.
The Stop Prop 209 Campaign is sponsored by Civil Rights, Women's Rights and Workers' Rights organizations including The Feminist Majority, the Rainbow Coalition, United Farm Workers, Vanguard Public Foundation, OUT THERE!, and NOW (National Organization for Women). California's response to the November initiative will send a clear message nationwide and will influence the outcomes of similar proposals in the seventeen other states where legislation of this sort is pending and at the federal level, where the Dole-Canady bill threatens to eliminate affirmative action and legalize sex discrimination nationwide. We must stop this stealth attack on women's and civil rights in its tracks.
If you are interested in contributing to Freedom Fall '96 and the "Stop Prop 209" campaign, they welcome volunteers, monetary donations, and office and art supplies. Contributions and inquiries can be directed to
Freedom Fall '96
205 13th Street, Suite 3000B
San Francisco 94103.
Activists can be reached by phone at (415) 255-2414, fax at (415) 255-2415
and by e-mail at fs96@feminist.org