Despite threatening skies, about 50 people turned out for a protest rally at Napa Valley College Wednesday afternoon.

"Why are we still blaming dire times on a recession that is over? The recession has been over since June, 2009," said student James Holiday, during his speech to the small but enthusiastic crowd.

"We just don't seem to care that much about education," continued Holiday, who is the student trustee on the Napa Valley College board and president of the college's Black Students Union.

The demonstration on the plaza outside the college's McCarthy Library was part of a statewide day of action against proposed budget cuts to public education in California.

Alex Shantz, president of the student senate, invoked the shade of Free Speech Movement orator Mario Savio with a fiery address.

"We have the power to refuse unjust decisions," Shantz told the assembled students and staff.

"Community college is not a corporation, and we as students are not raw materials and do not need to be made into a product," Shantz continued.

"We are human beings, we are lovers of learning and we seek to reate a bettre society not to conform to the systems that have ruined our society on the first place," he said, to cheers and applause.

Along with several student speakers, members of the college's staff and faculty also took the stage.

"In order to save a democracy, you have to have an educated populace. If you choke out public education, you won't have a democracy," said instructor Eileen Tejada, who told the students that they needed to get more of their classmates involved.

"If you all united and got together said there will be no cuts, there would be no cuts," she said. "But look around you? Where is everybody? Where are they?

"That’s a question you have to ask yourselves," Tejada continued. "How willing are you to stand up and push back?"

The Napa rally was nowhere near as large and vociferous as the one at the University of California, Berkeley on the same day, which drew hundreds of people and resulted in 17 arrests after protesters occupied a building.

But even a crowd of 50 is significant at a community college like Napa's, where many students are also working part-time or even full-time jobs while pursuing an education.