Featured
Taylor Memorial Church MLK Celebration Honors Visionaries, Features Author Joy DeGruy
By Wanda Ravernell
Author Joy DeGruy brought a message of healing and hope to the Black community Monday at the 16th annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration held by Taylor United Methodist Church in West Oakland.
Her address, on the lingering trauma of slavery and its effects on African Americans, was preceded by remarks by local elected officials and an awards ceremony for three Oakland Visionaries: Gay Plair Cobb, CEO of the Oakland Private Industry Council; Derreck Johnson, owner of the owner o Bay Area’s Home of Chicken and Waffles restaurant chain; and Juan Rodriguez, Family Support services of the Bay Area.
Cobb was honored for the work of PIC, which provide leadership in bringing living wage jobs to Oakland job-seekers; Johnson, whose restaurants are renowned for giving ex-offenders job opportunities; and Rodriquez, whose organizes provides services for youth.
DeGruy, 56, told the story that put her on the journey to writing her groundbreaking book, “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing.”
During an encounter while traveling with a group of women in South Africa 20 years ago, she learned that the ritual of greeting was one of the Africanisms that had survived among African Americans despite 246 years of slavery.
It is customary in Africa to acknowledge someone’s presence whether that person is known or unknown, saying, what can be translated to mean, “I see you.” To ignore another human being is the utmost rudeness, the worst slight.
Upon her return to the United States, she stopped a fight between some pre-teen boys, one of whom was insulted simply because someone was looking at him. “How did it come to this,” DeGruy asked herself, “that this boy couldn’t withstand a gaze?”
That set off a journey involving historical research, clinical psychology and observances of “56 years of being in this skin.”
To those who say it’s time to stop talking about slavery, she says it is time to start. “Slavery is not just our past but our present,” because “that past impacts us now.”
African Americans are the survivors of chattel slavery, a form that had never existed in the world before. The difference lies in the decision to justify the treatment of people by denying their humanity, “to re-label people to suit your behavior toward them.”
Over the course of 246 years this relabeling became systemic, supported by political, scientific, educational, economic institutions.
What began with ‘Black Codes’ governing slaves on plantations would morph into policies to control Black populations free and slave and would allow practically wholesale re-enslavement of former slaves after the Civil War under penal labor policies that follow us into the present.
The accompanying multi-generational trauma of the horrors of slavery and the Jim Crow era have hardly given African Americans room to examine what values in the culture of survival were worth passing on and what can now be left out.
“African Americans can ill afford to swallow whole our culture because there’s poison in it,” DeGruy says. Once “appropriate adaptations to the hostile environment of slavery” have become part of our culture, she says.
For example, she says, the hyper vigilance by Black parents of their small children in public places actually inhibits the child’s age appropriate development, implies that they are not safe, but above all intimates that they neither belong nor deserve to be participants in the world outside of their homes.
So, what was culturally normal and necessary then is not now. “But we never unlearned that,” she said.
Community
Four Candidates, Including Incumbent Barbara Lee, Qualify for Oakland Mayor’s Race
POST NEWS GROUP — Four candidates, including incumbent Mayor Barbara Lee, filed their papers to run for office by last Friday’s deadline, and the City Clerk issued a list this week of those who are qualified to run.
The four mayoral candidates who will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot are:
Brenda Grisham. A business owner in East Oakland and public safety advocate, Grisham led the successful recall campaign against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. As part of her platform, she pledges to work with local, state, and federal partners to secure stricter gun control measures and investments in community violence intervention programs.
Barbara Lee. A former congressional representative and state Assembly member, Lee was elected by voters in a special election last year for a two-year term. Now running for a four-year term, she points out that her administration achieved major successes in addressing some of the city’s major challenges, including balancing the city budget, dramatically reducing crime, and making significant inroads into homelessness and illegal dumping.
Mindy Pechenuk. An educator and activist, Pechenuk is a registered Republican and supporter of Lyndon LaRouche, who has been described by observers as a conspiracy theorist and cult leader. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in last year’s special election and for the at-large council seat in 2024. She seeks to end Oakland’s police commission and MACRO and invest in more police while launching a new local war on drugs.
Julius Robinson. While little information is available so far about Robinson, he was quoted in a KTVU story about Thao’s recall, stating that people in Oakland want to come together as a community but lack infrastructure and leadership.
Black History
Oakland Observes Black August with Block Parties, Film Showings, Workshops
POST NEWS GROUP — Beginning in 1979 in San Quentin State Prison, the Black Guerrilla Family called for the remembrance of political prisoner George Jackson and his brother Jonathan Jackson who were assassinated in the early 1970s. George Jackson was considered a political prisoner in that it was the anti-Black justice system that led to his incarceration for armed robbery with a sentence of one year-to-life in 1960.
Study. Train. Fast. Fight.
These are the four tenets of Black August, a month dedicated to commemorating the sacrifices of political prisoners and Black revolutionaries in the struggle for Black liberation.
Observers are urged to study the history of the Black struggle for freedom, train their bodies for health and self-defense, fast to cleanse the mind, body, and spirit, and fight ongoing oppression alongside their communities and local political organizations.
Beginning in 1979 in San Quentin State Prison, the Black Guerrilla Family called for the remembrance of political prisoner George Jackson and his brother Jonathan Jackson who were assassinated in the early 1970s. George Jackson was considered a political prisoner in that it was the anti-Black justice system that led to his incarceration for armed robbery with a sentence of one year-to-life in 1960.
While in prison, George befriended fellow prisoner W.L. Nolen, who introduced him to the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Frantz Fanon. This radicalization coupled with his experiences of violence while imprisoned led to him writing and publishing two books, “Soledad Brother” (1970), and “Blood in my Eye” (1972). In January of 1970, George and two other prisoners were charged with murdering a corrections officer at Soledad State Prison in Monterey County.
On Aug. 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson burst into a Marin County courtroom armed with a shotgun to demand the freedom of the Soledad Brothers. He, along with the inmates he freed, was shot and killed while driving away. This involved one of the Black Panther Party’s most notable associates, Angela Davis, because the shotgun was registered in her name. She was later acquitted of charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder in 1972.
On Aug. 21, 1971, George Jackson was assassinated by a corrections officer after attempting to escape and free other inmates. As a result, there were uprisings and protests within prisons all over the country that year, calling forth resistance against racial oppression and mass incarceration.
Since its outset, Black August has evolved across the country, taking many forms to honor this history and embody the four tenets.
In Oakland, the upcoming Black August Experience, hosted by Youth Alive! and the East Oakland Boxing Association (EOBA), is a free, family-friendly event celebrating the legacy of Black August. Activities include free food and drinks, a kids’ activity zone, interactive workshops, live cooking and boxing demonstrations, and more.
Happening on Aug. 21 from 4-8 p.m. at the EOBA Patio, Carolyn Flynn, director of administration at EOBA, said the event, in its second year, will be an opportunity to engage with people in person through food, shared space, and education.
“We do regular classes in education, and those are ongoing programs that we offer, but we wanted to have [an opportunity] for our neighbors to utilize this space.” Combined with Youth Alive’s work in community violence prevention and youth leadership, this event surely aims to bring the Oakland community together to capture what Black August means today.
Here are additional Black August events happening in Oakland:
Forum and Community Discussion hosted by the Oakland Liberation Center, 1499 Fruitvale Ave., Aug. 14, 7 p.m.
“George Jackson/San Quentin” Screening hosted by Nostalgic for Nothing Cinema at Moments Co-Op, 410 13th St., Aug. 16, doors at 6 p.m., show at 6:30 p.m. (Masks required and scent-free)
Commemorating the Struggle, Building the Altar for Liberation: Black August at Bandung Books, 2269 International Blvd., Aug. 23rd, 1-5 p.m.
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), will host “Black August: The Arc of Liberation” at Oakland City Hall on Sat. Aug. 29, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026
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Four Candidates, Including Incumbent Barbara Lee, Qualify for Oakland Mayor’s Race
Oakland Observes Black August with Block Parties, Film Showings, Workshops
Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026
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Less Affluent School Districts, Including Sacramento City, Face Threat of State Takeover
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