Adelana Akindes
Adelana Akindes aka Lana Akindes or Leti Sayoko is a Wisconsin activist. Daughter of Fay Yokomizo Akindes, a professor at UW Parkside.
Education
University of Wisconsin - Parkside UWP · Environmental Studies.
US Teamsters on the Frontlines!
US Teamsters on the Frontlines! was a July 16 2023 Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! webinar on the looming UPS strike.
Participants included Adelana Akindes.
US Teamsters on the Frontlines!
US Teamsters on the Frontlines! was a July 16 2023 Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack! webinar on the looming UPS strike.
Participants included Adelana Akindes.
Abortion protest
According to Lauren Forbush, 0n the afternoon of July 17 2022, about 65 people gathered in downtown Milwaukee to protest in the streets for reproductive justice. This event was led by a brand new grassroots organization named Reproductive Justice Action-Milwaukee (RJAM).
“We cannot and we will not go back. In 1849, when the Wisconsin abortion ban was written into law, women didn’t have the right to vote. Black men did not have the right to vote. Neither had the right to own property,” said Hayley McNeil, a member of RJAM.
“The 1% wants us to keep having children. They wanna strip away our rights to our own bodies,” exclaimed Adelana Akindes representing Freedom Road Socialist Organization.[1]
Rittenhouse protest
Just after noon on November 20 2021 , over 120 people gathered at Red Arrow Park downtown Milwaukee to condemn the “innocent on all charges” verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. The protest was called for and organized by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society, and the Wisconsin district of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. All three groups had a presence on the ground in Kenosha last summer in the midst of the uprising.
Once the march reached the courthouse, speakers took center stage. The people in attendance heard from representatives of each of the organizations responsible for hosting the event as well as The People's Revolution, whose membership turned out in support.
Adelana Akindes of UWM SDS spoke first, sharing her experiences protesting in Kenosha before and after Rittenhouse’s killing of Anthony Huber and JoJo Rosenbaum. On the night after Rittenhouse fled from Kenosha, Akindes was swept up by officers in unmarked vans. A successful nationwide fight was waged by National SDS, the Milwaukee Alliance, and their allies to free Akindes and the other people who were being held with her.
The next to speak was Nadezdha Young Binter, a rank-and-file trade unionist and member of FRSO. After reading off a statement from the organization, she told the crowd, “This capitalist country and capitalism around the world has always been built on the hyper-exploitation of Black labor. You can’t fight capitalism without the participation of the people who are most oppressed by it; there is no end to capitalism without Black liberation.”
Mariah Smith of The People's Revolution spoke next. TPR formed out of the spontaneous mass protests that erupted in Milwaukee in the summer of 2020 and went on marching every day for more than 200 days, and Smith was and is an integral part of their efforts.
Alan Chavoya, a leader with the Milwaukee Alliance, wrapped up the speakers stating, “You’ve got this people’s uprising in Kenosha over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. This kid sitting in his fucking house in Illinois thinks, ‘I gotta go over there and protect that property.’ Why is he thinking like that?”[2]
Arrested
Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
August 27 2020.
UPDATE: ADELANA AND ALL SDS ORGANIZERS ARE FREE!
Organizers in Kenosha are getting disappeared and we must put an end to racist and political repression. Free Adelana Akindes, Danika Griffin?, and Victor Garcia now!! No more federal repression!
Gathering UNAC support
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In February 2020 organizers with the Milwaukee-based Coalition to March on the DNC attended the national conference of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), to build support for a major protest at the Democratic National Convention in July.
The Coalition to March on the DNC is a broad coalition of left and progressive forces who plan to bring popular demands to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, slated to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The march will be held on the opening morning of the convention, Monday, July 13.
“All eyes will be on Milwaukee when the people’s movements protest outside the DNC as it takes place at the Fiserv Forum, July 13 through July 16, 2020. The Coalition calls on all progressive, left, democratic and socialist organizations to join us in unity,” said Omar Flores, spokesperson for the Coalition.
UNAC is celebrating its 10th anniversary as the leading U.S. anti-war coalition, with its fifth national conference taking place February 21-23. Representatives from nearly 60 organizations from across the country attended Friday’s opening panel, titled “Opposing Imperialist Wars,” which featured Bahman Azad of the U.S. Peace Council, Bernadette Ellorin of Filipina-American organization BAYAN-USA, and Camilo Mejia, a Nicaraguan-American who became a prisoner of conscience for refusing U.S. military deployment during the Iraq War. The panel was moderated by longtime anti-war and labor activist Joe Lombardo.
The Coalition to March on the DNC has already received dozens of endorsements from groups across the country, many of which are planning to travel to Milwaukee for the protest.[3]
Coaltion to March on the DNC
In February 2020 Ramone Santana, Francesca Danilovic and Adelana Akindes started a Gofundme page to send Coaltion to March on the DNC members to a UNAC meeting in New York.[4]
SDS
According to Ethan Costello of Kenosha, WI Students for a Democratic Society - Parkside (SDS) organized a #FreeChrystul rally at UW-Parkside on February 5 2020 that saw 40 protesters attend. The demonstrators congregated outside the building where District Attorney Mike Graveley, Chrystul Kizer’s prosecutor, was teaching his first class of the spring semester, on criminal law.
The group began with chants that echoed across the campus thanks to the excellent acoustics between campus buildings. Coinciding with the start of the class period, speakers from different organizations and backgrounds shared their messages. These included Adelana Akindes, a leader with SDS; Annia Leonard, from Uplifting Black Liberation And Community (UBLAC); Michael Bell, Sr., the father of Michael Bell, who was shot and killed by the Kenosha Police Department in 2004; and Devore Taylor, Chrystul’s mother.
Taylor said that Graveley “had evidence about not only Chrystul but a whole bunch of others. It wasn’t just her. And the fact it took for her to do something because she was tired of it.” She added, “He is trying to sweep the whole problem under the rug but it’s so much bigger than her.”
“The system is racist. The system is sexist. The system is classist. So for Chrystul, a young black teenage girl, from a working-class family, the system cares the least about her and it shows,” said SDS leader Adelana Akindes. “The injustice is profound. Chrystul deserves justice. Chrystul deserves to live a free life. She deserves to heal from these atrocities.”
Kat Miller, rally emcee and SDS organizer, closed the speeches by reading aloud the letter written by the Harvard Law School National Lawyers Guild to DA Graveley condemning his conduct.
The demonstrators then marched to the doors of the hall in which Graveley was teaching a class not more than 100 feet away, chanting “Hey hey, ho ho! Graveley has got to go!” and “When Chrystul Kizer is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”
In case Graveley could not hear or was attempting to ignore the protesters outside his classroom, SDS organizers plastered his classroom with flyers saying “Chrystul Kizer defended herself” and left copies of the Lawyers Guild letter on desks so that his students knew who was teaching their class. This was only the first among what is sure to be many actions on campus against DA Graveley as the students from SDS attempt to get him removed from teaching there.[5]
Jazz loving comrades
Francesca Danilovic September 16, 2019 · Chicago, IL ·
photo cred: Fay Yokomizo Akindes — with Leti Sayoko and Ramone Santana at Chicago Jazz Festival.