Attending the April 4th luncheon for President Obama hosted by Marcia and John Goldman at their home in Atherton, CA were Michael Davenport, Councilman Nat Bates, Peggy Moore, Obama’s California Political Director for his re-election Campaign and possible candidate for the 15th Assembly District and Vice Mayor Corky Booze. Photo by Joe L. Fisher,...
Read more →By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Bookworm Sez Not in a hundred years. There was just no way. From the minute you saw her, you knew everything you needed to know about that woman. She was a schemer, she was the worst kind of liar, and a friendship between the two of you was Not. Going....
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Kitty Kelly Epstein, an Oakland activist, received the 2013 Marilyn Gittel Activist Scholar award last week when the Urban Affairs Association held its national conference at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Scholars from across the U.S. and many other countries, including Libya, South Africa, China, and Singapore presented research on topics ranging from...
Read more →By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor The City of Oakland took a first step towards putting a dent in Oakland’s pressing unemployment crisis this week with City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee giving unanimous approval to opening a West Oakland Job Resource Center. Budgeted at $500,000 per year for both operation and city support and...
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Turner Group Demands Ruby’s Retraction by April 15 By Ken A. Epstein The Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce is saying that City Auditor Courtney Ruby’s recent report “maligns” the reputation of Turner Group Construction, a local contracting firm that Ruby accused two city council members of trying to favor. In a separate letter,...
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Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) recently announced that he would introduce legislation to refinance a key fishing industry loan to help sustain fishing communities, and support jobs along the Pacific coast. “The health of our coastal economy is in large part dependent on the success of our local fishermen. But it is becoming increasingly...
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By Ken A. Epstein If you read the city auditor’s new report like it’s the gospel truth, then Courtney Ruby’s 64-page “performance review” cites damning evidence against two members of the Oakland City Council who are accused of interfering with staff in awarding a multi-million dollar contract for part of the city’s Oakland Army...
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By Kia Croom, Contributing Writer Local extent organizer Dante Toomer recently held “Daddy Day,” an afternoon of activities for fathers to share with their children. The event, held on the afternoon of March 16 at Marina Park, took place in conjunction with a carnival sponsored by the City of Emeryville. Fathers and their children...
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Reba Williams, a 106-year-old woman from Columbus, Ohio, is finally receiving her high school diploma. She never graduated from Mount Vernon High School even though she completed all 12 years. Apparently, she was being punished for being in “academic rebellion,” when she refused to read the final book assigned by her teacher during her...
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By Godfrey Lee People’s Inter-cities Fellowship Church celebrated the 54th anniversary of Pastor Fred Small’s ministry Sunday, Dec. 9. Church members, friends and visiting ministers packed the church to celebrate the event. Carol Randle recognized First Lady Evelyn Small for being a good wife to Pastor Small and as a wonderful role model for...
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By Ashley Chambers Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest home mortgage lender, announced this week it is launching CityLIFT, which will offer down payment assistance to potential homebuyers. “Today, despite low home prices and historically low interest rates, many families are still unable to purchase a home because they struggle with making the down payment,”...
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By Post Staff After Jonathan Jones was featured in the Post (09/13/2011), he was asked to provide Breathing Aerobics training to the staff and clients at Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay. He has also appeared as a guest on several radio shows to talk about Breathing Aerobics and health. He is a regular...
Read more →Most of the measures on the San Francisco ballot were approved by voters this week, including the Measure A San Francisco City College parcel tax to provide the college with funds the state cannot take away, offset budget cuts and prevent layoffs. Measure A was designed to ensure an affordable, quality education for students;...
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By Gregory Taylor The battle over the South China Sea Islands has erupted again. It seems this happens every few years so one country can put a contending country on notice that there is still an unresolved issue of ownership. Since April 2012, there has been a rekindling of these antediluvian disputes as to...
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By Clinton Etheridge It was a chance encounter with history – and maybe destiny. When Alex Haley and I crossed paths in Gambia in March 1972, little did I know that he would go on to produce “Roots,” the book and TV-miniseries that would take America and the world by storm. At that time,...
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Also Attorney Jayne Williams, Judge Trina Thompson, William Patterson to Receive BWOPA Award The Black Women Organized for Political Action – Political Action Committee (BWOPA PAC) is hosting its annual Ella Hill Hutch Awards ceremony, honoring seven women and one man from throughout California for their community leadership and activism. The event will take...
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By Godfrey Lee The Agency Wide Resident Council (AWRC) gave a barbeque luncheon for the community on Tuesday, Oct. 16 to celebrate the grand opening of council’s new office in Marin City. The office space, located at 263 Drake Ave., is next to the Phoenix Project and will serve the Golden Gate Village Committee...
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After four years of planning in partnership with the City of San Leandro and a group of citizen volunteers, Cal-Coast Development is readying a project submittal for a 50-acre mixed-use development along the San Francisco Bay in San Leandro. “The Shoreline Development has the potential to transform the large and vacant asphalt parking lots...
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Filmmaker Susheel Bibbs will introduce the history making Hyers Sisters to San Francisco audiences in “An Offering in Word and Song: The Hyers Sisters – Voices for Freedom,” at 2 p.m. on Nov. 4 at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. In 1871 Anna and Emma Hyers of Sacramento became the...
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BART Board: Maria Alegria City Council: Nat Bates By Kia Croom In what is widely viewed as a pivotal national, statewide and local election, the Black American Political Action Committee (BAPAC) is announcing its endorsements and voter-assistance for anyone needing help getting to the polls. “Our message is that...
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By Clinton Etheridge I joined Peace Corps Gambia and went to Africa in search of my Blackness. I was born in 1947 and grew up in Harlem in the 1950s, coming of age during the civil rights movement. My mother and father hailed from North Carolina, which I visited in the 1950s. I experienced...
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By Ken A. Epstein A local criminal attorney is raising questions after examining the police report in the shooting death of Alan Blueford by Oakland Police Officer Miguel Masso. Meanwhile, Alameda County prosecutors last week released a report saying the police officer acted in self-defense and will face no criminal charges. The partial police...
Read more →By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times The campaign to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole has launched radio and television advertisements, depicting capital punishment as a futile exercise that costs taxpayers and coddles criminals. With only days left before the election, the Proposition 34 campaign is spending more than...
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Yelda Bartlett, candidate for AC Transit board – Ward 1, is running on a platform to reduce emissions in order to improve air quality, protect collective bargaining rights of employees and increase services to expand ridership. “As an attorney and community advocate, I have experience in standing up for what is right. As a...
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Question: Where can Christians go for fun? Are there safe places where they can go to network, socialize or just hangout and party without compromising their moral values and Christian beliefs? The answer is yes. The Christ Lounge, intended for young adults ages 21 and older, and The Pit Stop for teens, ages 13...
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By David Scott and Ashley Chambers Alexandria Bridgett will be representing Oakland in the upcoming Miss USA California Pageant to be held Jan. 11-13, 2013. A graduate of McClymonds High School in Oakland with honors as Salutatorian in 2010, she was also captain of the Girls Varsity Basketball team and vice president of the...
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By Clinton Etheridge I first went to Africa in 1970 when I was 23 when I became the first Black Peace Corps Volunteer in Gambia, West Africa—a former British colony where I taught math. My granddaughter Brianna went to Africa when she was only 4 years old, in July 2011 when I returned to...
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By Ashley Chambers Watching the 2012 Olympic Games, Olympic gold medalist James “Jim” Ray Hines reminisced on the moment he made history 48 years ago. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, he ran the 100-meter race in 9.95 seconds, breaking the 10-second barrier set by his idol, Olympic sprinter Bob Hayes. Growing up...
Read more →Dr. Mary Agnes Lewis, a professor at Bay Area colleges and universities and an early leader in the “Black Consciousness Movement,” died on Sept. 4. She was 73. Born on Oct. 7, 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee to Theodore R. Lewis and Elizabeth Ann Lewis. She was educated in the Detroit Public School system and...
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The Church of Pentecost Women’s Ministry of the Oakland District held their Annual District Convention on October 10-14, 2012 at The Church of Pentecost Oakland District on 4519 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way under Pastor Jehu Gyimah. The main speaker was Deaconess Ruth Delaquiz of Houston, Texas with the theme “The Excellent Way of...
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Lewis Jordan has been selected by the Marin Housing Authority board to lead the 50-person agency, which serves over 12,000 residents. Jordan will follow Dan Nackerman, the former executive director who left the agency in 2008 to become the head of the Housing Authority in San Bernardino County. “We are pleased to have Lewis...
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By Terry Baynes and Jonathan Stempel, Reuters Chevron Corp this week lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to block an $18.2 billion judgment against it in Ecuador in a case over pollution in the Amazon jungle. The Supreme Court did not give any explanation for its decision, which rejected Chevron’s appeal of a lower...
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By Angela Smith The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Credit Union Advisory Council has named Gary Bell an inaugural member of the council to serve a 2-year term. The advisory council works to ensure that the bureau stays in touch with the needs and perspectives of credit unions and strengthens the bureau’s commitment to protect...
Read more →By Kitty Kelly Epstein At least four actions must be taken by the City Council if jobs at the Army Base for Oakland residents are going to be more than a promise. Up to now Oakland flatland residents have not been allowed to work on construction projects, even when those projects were funded with...
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A massive gun that was on the battleship Missouri when the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II will soon be installed on a cliff at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The 68-foot-long, 236,000-pound gun will be painted and displayed at the Battery Townsley fortification in the Golden Gate National Recreation...
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By Mieasha Harris The Richmond Recreation Complex held a BART forum for the community Wednesday, Sept. 26, where Mark Smith and Kobia West of the Office of the Independent Police Auditor (OIPA) spoke about public oversight of BART police. It was announced at the meeting that BART police officers will soon be equipped with...
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The California State Park and Recreation Commission has renamed Eastshore State Park in honor of Save the Bay co-founder Sylvia McLaughlin. The 8.5-mile ribbon of parkland on the East Bay shoreline will be renamed “McLaughlin Eastshore State Park.” “Sylvia McLaughlin has been a force of nature at the very core of protecting our San...
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By Ashley Chambers For the first time in the history of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Tai Chunn and his company MVC Management Productions led an all African American production team in the Nina Skarra Spring 2013 runway show. Presented at the Lincoln Center Avery Fisher Hall in New York Sept. 8, the show was...
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The 46th anniversary of the Black Panther Party will be celebrated from noon to 3 pm. Saturday, Oct. 13 in Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall in downtown Oakland, sponsored by the Commemoration Committee for the Black Panther Party. Following the outdoor celebration, the event will continue from 3 p.m. to 7...
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Wells Fargo & Company, in partnership with Rebuilding Together East Bay North and the City of Richmond, sent more than 100 Wells Fargo Team Members on Sept. 22 to volunteer their time to help rebuild two homes, create a community garden and restore a building in the Iron Triangle neighborhood Richmond. In addition to...
Read more →By Jesse Jackson The silence is deafening. Last week, the New York Times reported a horrifying measure of America’s shame. Life expectancy for white women without a high school degree had decreased by five years since 1990, according to a study in Health Affairs. Five years. The least-educated white men lost three years in...
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By Julee Wilson Huffington Post Keija Minor has been named the editor-in-chief of Brides, succeeding Anne Fulenwider, making her the first person of color, after 103 years, to ever hold the title at a Condé Nast Publications (CNP) magazine. Minor’s new appointment is major news. CNP is a privately owned company that produces 18...
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By Kristen Bole, UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has received a $20 million gift from philanthropist Chuck Feeney to build a new hub for Global Health Sciences at the UCSF Mission Bay campus. Feeney made the gift through The Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation he created in 1982. This commitment brings Atlantic’s...
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By Kia Croom Colonel D. Gardner, a former mathematics instructor and computer scientist, celebrated his 100th birthday on Sept. 7 at his Lordship’s Restaurant in Berkeley. The event was hosted by his daughter Gloria Lars-Bond. Gardner was born in 1912 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he earned a...
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Oakland-based artist collective Community Rejuvenation Project (CRP) has announced the completion of its latest art project: nine new murals between Harbor Way and Second St. in the Richmond Greenway. The murals, painted over the past four weeks, include the identifying piece “This Way to the Greenway,” as well as several pieces which continue the...
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