Since Ronald Reagan’s massive assault on transportation spending in the 1980s, the “service delay” has been an integral part of the US public transit experience. Riders of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system — servicing San Francisco, Oakland, and surrounding municipalities — are certainly familiar with the groan-inducing announcement, often prompted by a case of infrastructural disrepair that can no longer be ignored.

In the weeks following the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, there was rarely a day without station closures or service delays on BART. But these were not due to crumbling tracks. Protests were bringing the system to a grinding halt.

One of the most prominent was a Black Friday action in which fourteen activists shut down the entire BART system for several hours by forming a human chain through train cars, straddling the West Oakland BART station platforms.