Black History

SHAPE Community Center turns 50

DEFENDER NEWS NETWORK — SHAPE Community Center has reason to celebrate. Since its founding on June 1, 1969, the Third Ward institution has made an impact on Houston and beyond for 50 years. SHAPE – which stands for Self-Help for African People through Education – has a history of providing programs and activities to strengthen families and communities.

Published

7 years ago

June 2, 2019

Oakland Post

By Marilyn Marshall

SHAPE Community Center has reason to celebrate. Since its founding on June 1, 1969, the Third Ward institution has made an impact on Houston and beyond for 50 years. SHAPE – which stands for Self-Help for African People through Education – has a history of providing programs and activities to strengthen families and communities.

Anniversary activities include the center’s 40^thannual Pan-African Cultural Festival on Saturday, May 25 and a Founder’s Day Celebration on Saturday, June 1. Another major event is planned for November.

Deloyd Parker, SHAPE’s co-founder and executive director, has been at the helm since the beginning. He stresses that SHAPE is a team comprised of committed supporters of all ages and backgrounds who have made the organization what it is today.

“SHAPE is not about one individual,” Parker said. “We want to make sure it is around many, many years after I have left this planet.”

In an interview with the Defender, Parker discussed the past, present and future.

Defender: What is the key to SHAPE’s 50-year history of serving the community?

Parker: In order for an organization to continue and evolve and sustain itself, those who come through have to come back and give back. We depend on the community to keep SHAPE alive, not just financially but by volunteering. Time equals money and the fact that people give back and volunteer their services shows that there’s no power like the power of the people.

We deal with three generations at SHAPE – the children, their parents and the elders. Children represent our future, parents help us develop and cultivate that future, and our elders represent the wisdom we need to make sure we’re going in the right direction.

Defender: What is the biggest challenge facing SHAPE right now?

Parker: Sustainability and making sure that the community recognizes our value. That’s not to suggest that many do not. We’re looking for 50 people right now to invest $500 for a total of $25,000 to continue our programs. For those who don’t have $500, we are asking for $50. Obviously, finances and economics is a continuing problem. For those who contribute we don’t call it a donation. We call it an investment.

Defender: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing the Black community overall?

Parker: Getting us to recognize the seven major principles [of African culture called the Nguzo Saba – unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith]. Unity extends from the family to the community. Self-determination is being able to speak for ourselves, define ourselves, name ourselves. Collective work and responsibility involve developing our community together. Cooperative economics is being able recognize the importance of pooling our economic resources to build and sustain institutions in our community. We have to have a team effort.

Then we have to have a purpose. We have to know what our purpose is and focus in on it. We have to have creativity; we can’t do it the straight and narrow way. We have to go this way, that way, up, down. As Black people, we have faith, but we have to strengthen our faith.

The challenge is embracing those seven principles. The blueprint is already there. You just have to follow that blueprint and be able to read it and empower it.

Defender: What will the Founder’s Day celebration entail?

Parker: People will be coming from everywhere to join us – children who grew up at SHAPE and are now doctors, lawyers, teachers. We will celebrate and pay homage to those who are no longer with us, from Elder Jean Dember to Esther King, and many more who are gone now. If it hadn’t been for them, there would be no SHAPE Center.

Rev. Bill Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, will receive our first Honorable Chief Chairman Award. Rev. Lawson was instrumental in helping start SHAPE Center. He is the one who called on me to start the program and I answered his call.

50^thanniversary events

Pan-African Cultural Festival, Saturday, May 25, 10 a.m., SHAPE, 3815 Live Oak
Founder’s Day Celebration, Saturday, June 1, 6:30 p.m., Emancipation Cultural Center, 3018 Emancipation Ave. “Royal cultural” attire. RSVP at Shape50th.eventbrite.com

Visit www.shape.org

This article originally appeared in the Defender News Network.

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Activism

Cassie ‘Mama C’ Lopez Honored as Oakland’s Mother of the Year

Cassandra “Mama C” Lopez, a dedicated parent, teacher, and activist, was honored as Oakland’s Mother of the Year for her unwavering commitment to community and justice.

Published

28 minutes ago

May 15, 2026

Oakland Post

Cassandra Lopez, known as “Mama C,” is surrounded by family, friends, and neighbors at Oakland’s annual Mother of Year celebration at the Morcom Rose Garden, Saturday, May 9. Photo by Mateenah Floyd-Okanlawon.

By Ken Epstein

The City of Oakland recognized Cassandra, “Mama C,” Lopez – parent, teacher, community activist, and justice warrior – as Oakland’s Mother of the Year in a celebration at Oakland’s Morcom Rose Garden on Mother’s Day weekend.

Long recognized as a leader in her community, she was nominated by District 3 City Councilmember Carroll Fife to receive the city’s 73rd annual Mother of the Year award.

Speaking at the crowded ceremony on Saturday, May 9, where Mama C received roses and a proclamation from Mayor Barbara Lee, Fife said she felt honored to nominate Lopez, an “amazing woman – a hell-raising humanitarian, for the energy, the passion, but most of all the love for community” that makes her one of those “exceptional women whose lives, exemplify love, sacrifice, leadership, and unwavering commitment to the family and community they serve.”

Cassie Lopez was born in 1945 to Pauline and Calvin Weaver, a family that had left Florida and Jim Crow for the east side of Detroit. From an early age, she was instilled with a sense of Black awareness, love, and the importance of community in the face of hardships, including poverty, freezing winters, low pay, and slum landlords.

Fifty-five years ago, she married Juan Lopez. The couple has three children and has lived for decades in a neighborhood on the edge of downtown Oakland near Mosswood Park.

Said her husband, Juan, “Mama C has been a selfless mother of our own children, and she also became a teacher. Our home became a second home for many young people. For some, it was refuge from difficult home situations, and for others, a safe place to hang out.

“Throughout the years, Mama C was sometimes a foot soldier and other times a leader, immersed in some of the biggest national and citywide struggles of the day,” Juan said. “But less known to many is the role she played day in and day out where the rubber hits the road.

“For 35 years, she has shepherded the Mosswood Park and Recreation Center – through its good and bad times. If the Center exists (and thrives) today, it has to do with Mama C, working alongside neighbors, center directors, community advisory council, and when necessary, community coalitions, city officials, the religious community, and the labor movement.”

Said Mateenah Floyd-Okanlawon, “I am an old friend of my sister here. We met in 1970 in the sugarcane fields of Cuba, where we were helping the Cuban government harvest their sugar. We have been friends ever since. She has always been someone who does not give in to despair.”

David Johnson, an educator in Oakland, was one of the neighborhood children who grew up in the community created by Mama C and her family

“Cassandra Lopez is a beacon of light, full of compassion. She has dedicated her life to quality education to the poor and working class,” serving for 40 years as a Spanish teacher in Oakland schools, he said.

“She has dedicated her life to speak truth to power, justice to the silent, and as a member of the community, she advocates for programs and resources,” he said.

In her remarks, Mama C recognized the influence and power of all mothers. “Together, we all stand on the backs of our mothers. Mothers play a special role in society. We give when we have almost nothing left to give. We hurt when some people don’t see the hurt and the pain that our families endure. But we keep on moving forward.”

Looking at what African Americans, other people of color and working people face in the country today, she said, “We are deserving of the very best because our hands, our bodies produce the wealth of world, and yet we get the least. We see our country wholesale being stolen away from us, and we are told to grin and bear it. We’re not bearing it; we’re fighting against it.”

Continuing, she said, “There’s enough wealth in this world that there should be no hunger in the world. There should be nobody without a decent place to live. Nobody should be sleeping on the street. Teachers should get the freedom to be creative and tell the stories that exist in this nation that make us strong and great.

“We have a lot to do. We cannot despair. We cannot run. People are learning, and together, collectively, we can do it.”