By Carla Thomas

Black Vines: A Toast to Black Wineries, Black Art and Black Culture held their 12th anniversary event on Saturday, Feb. 25 at The Bridgeyard, near the Judge John Sutter Regional Shoreline in Oakland. It is the longest-running African American winemaker showcase.

Hundreds of guests gathered to celebrate and enjoy a live jazz band while sampling wines and buffets of gourmet bites throughout the venue.

The brainchild of founder Fern Stroud, the event is designed to both promote and support the Black wine experience along with good food and great music.

Stroud, a former Silicon Valley technology professional says, “Black Vines, is a way to bridge gaps and build lifelong ties between community, business and the arts while we celebrate Black excellence.”

Proceeds from the event supports the nonprofit think tank, BlackFemaleProject.org.

Stroud was also excited to announce a new partnership with Alaska Airlines. In the new “Wines Fly Free” program, guests were able to bring cases of wine on their flights back home for free. Also, the McBride Sisters wines are now a featured option on flights with Alaska Airlines.

A.T. Howe, founder of Bass Note Sangria at the Black Vines: A Toast to Black Wineries, Black Art and Black Culture 12th anniversary event. Photo By Carla Thomas

Paula Harrell, left, owner of P. Harrell Wines with staff at the Black Vines: A Toast to Black Wineries, Black Art and Black Culture 12th anniversary event. Photo By Carla Thomas

Wachira Wines staff pour samples of wine at the Black Vines: A Toast to Black Wineries, Black Art and Black Culture 12th anniversary event. Photo By Carla Thomas

Winemakers and vintners at Black Vines included Free Range Flower Winery, Wachira Wines, She Wines, Vintnoir, P. Harrell, and Bass Note Sangria, among others.

“We see this event as an extension of their collective and independent outreach efforts to increase awareness, visibility and market demand for these labels. Our core mission is to provide a tasting experience unlike any other. There has been a steady loyalty factor born out of our Black Vines annual event.”

Additional Black Vine partners include Wine Direct, an industry-leading direct-to-consumer platform; the NAACP x BeyGOOD Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund for winery empowerment, and She Can, which provides grants and services via the McBride Sisters wine brand.

For Stroud, building economic pathways in the industry will strengthen the business of Black vintners, and ensure sustainability for their community.

“These strategic alliances further establish our desire to provide a consumer touchpoint for wineries to be introduced to a new consumer base. The future success of wineries, going forward, will be heavily dependent upon the experiences created for new potential customers.”

For every event, Stroud, says spreading love is key. “With all that we do for Black Vines, love is at the heart of it, and we want our guests and patrons to feel every bit of that.”

For more information visit: www.BlackVines.net

By Daisha Williams
Post News Group Intern

When Oakland School of the Arts students get a break from class, they frequently stop at their favorite hangouts for food and drinks in downtown Oakland, including three Black-owned spots, Dusk Coffee, Mama T’s, and Rare Blend Coffee.

Black-owned businesses tend to be hard to find because they are hard to keep around. However students at Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) help keep these businesses around by visiting so frequently.

A high schooler’s day is long, with eight hours of school, and for many, extracurricular activities after school. Caffeine is a much-needed energy boost for many students, and coffee is an easy, delicious, way to get it.

Both Dusk Coffee and Rare Blend Coffee get a significant amount of business from OSA students.

A rose latte is one of the appealing drinks that Oakland School for the Arts students buy at Dusk Coffee. Photo by Daisha Williams.

Rare Blend is a small cafe that sits on the corner in between the school and the parking lot on 19th street. There are tables and little booths inside, but students tend to prefer sitting outside in the alleyway in groups of six to eight, with a few at a time going inside to get drinks. In addition to coffee, Rare Blend offers small pastries and smoothies.

Dusk Coffee is a little farther away, on 16th street, but still incredibly easy for students to go to on their lunch break. There are many tables and chairs outside their cafe, so students often eat lunch here as well. The cafe is decorated in neutral colors, contrasting with Rare Blend’s colorful aesthetic. In this sense, Dusk is a very traditional coffee shop. In other ways it is incredibly unique, one example being their inclusion of fun menu items like their rose latte.

OSA’s high school students are able to go off campus for lunch and a popular spot for them is Mama T’s, named after the owner. Unlike many local restaurants, Mama T’s has been around for almost 15 years, so it has a long-standing reputation with OSA students.

While many small businesses shut down during 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. Mama T’s was one of the few businesses that stayed open.

When asked about the pandemic affecting her restaurant, Mama T said, “It definitely impacted me, not only not having the school, but also the City Hall workers and everyone else. The thing that saved me was that I got a contract to make lunches for homeless people.”

Formerly known as Catered 2 U, after restrictions were lifted  the restaurant rebranded to Mama T’s, named after the owner. Located less than a block from OSA’s main entrance, the business has no seating area, just a kitchen and a counter.

Still, kids don’t mind standing as they wait for their food before going elsewhere. When asked about the amount of business they get from OSA students, Mama T replied, “Enough so that I created the OSA menu. There are several other schools in the area but I don’t do it for them because they come once every three or four months… I get students from OSA every single day.”

The OSA menu has specific meals for the students, as well as discounts on normal menu items. One menu item that is extremely popular with the students is their fries, which is featured on the OSA menu for only $3  a serving. Robert O’Grady, a junior at OSA said, “Their fries were legendary…. There’s no word to describe it, their fries were on everybody’s mind.”

Other popular menu items include their chicken nuggets and their “famous” fish sandwich.

William Truong, OSA’s student body president, called Mamma T’s “the place I go to treat myself to something good.”

If you’d like to visit, here are the addresses for all the places mentioned.

Mama T’s: 1711 Telegraph Ave

Rare Blend Cafe: 555 19th St

Dusk Coffee: 1615 Broadway

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

America’s employers added 311,000 jobs last month, surpassing the 208,000 experts predicted.

Further, the last two years saw more jobs created since 1940, a sign that the country has recovered soundly from the COVID-19 recession.

In January, employers added 504,000 jobs, and then 300,000+ last month, robust gains that pointed to high demand for labor.

However, despite the solid report, the African American job market remained problematic.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall unemployment rate rose to 3.6% in February from 3.4% the prior month.

Women over 20 saw an unemployment rate slightly rise to 3.2% from 3.1%.

Unemployment rates for Black women climbed to 5.1% from 4.7%.

Among Hispanic women, it jumped to 4.8% from 4.4%.

The Black unemployment rate peaked at 5.7%, up from 5.4% in January.

But, President Biden said he was excited about overall progress.

“I’m happy to report that our economy has created over 300,000 new jobs last month, and that’s on top of a half a million jobs we added the month before,” a celebratory President Joe Biden exclaimed.

“All told, we’ve created more than 12 million jobs since I took office, nearly 800,000 of them manufacturing jobs.

“That means, overall, we’ve created more jobs in two years than any administration has created in the first four years.”

Biden said he believes his administration’s economic plan is working.

The President asserted that when he took office, the economy was reeling.

“And 18 million people were unemployed, on unemployment insurance, compared to less than 2 million today,” he stated.

“Unemployment was 6.3 percent, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted it wouldn’t get below 4 percent until 2026.

“Because of our economic plan, unemployment has been below 4 percent for 14 straight months since January 2022.”

In February, the unemployment rate remained near the lowest level in a half-century.

“That’s really good news. People who were staying out of the job market are now getting back into the job market,” the President noted.

“They’re coming off the sidelines. They’re getting back into the job market. And today’s job numbers are clear: Our economy is moving in the right direction.”

Biden declared that jobs are available, and Americans are working again and becoming more optimistic about the future.

He called right-wing Republicans the biggest threat to America’s economic recovery.

“The reckless talk, my MAGA friends. This is not your — as you’ve heard me say, it’s not your father’s Republican party,” Biden railed.

“But the Republicans in the United States Congress, what they want to do with regard to the debt limit. You know, they’re threatening to default on our national debt. Planning to default, as some Republicans seem to be doing, puts us much at risk.”

He continued:

“I believe we should be building on our progress, not go backward. So, I urge our extreme MAGA Republican friends in Congress to put the threats aside. Instead, join me in continuing the progress we’ve built. We’ve got a lot more to do, so let’s finish the job.”