Community

Black, Female Elder Faces Trauma in the Courts

Published

9 years ago

September 17, 2016

Maxine Ussery, a Black woman over 80 years of age, and her husband and brother, have received an eviction notice to vacate the property their father Ananias Willis left to them.

It is a modest property with 10 bungalow units in West Oakland, but it is all they have left after the court sold their father’s home and thriving cleaners business in 2013.

Homelessness is so stressful it can kill, especially someone of this age. At work, the stress and trauma on Maxine’s face is palpable. She excuses herself frequently with an upset stomach that “has been like this for months.”

Apparently the courts have forgotten they were created, “for the people.” There’s fault on both sides. The Willis’ violated the first rule of estate planning: Never step foot inside a probate court.

Yet once they landed in probate as a result of actions of a single sibling, the judge should have protected this family.

It did not. Instead it became a predator.

(See Post Story March 25, 2016 “Even when Done Right the Probate Court Still Wins”).

The cold fact is the court has every right to do what it is doing. Unfortunately, the judges have forgotten their raison for existing. The court’s purpose is to protect families and make sure assets are fairly distributed among family members according to trust documents.

The court-appointed trustee of the Ussery-Willis estate trustee has violated the first five rules on the trustee responsibility list, which can be viewed on information on the Alameda Court website.

The law says the trustee must: Do what the trust document says as long as it is legal; Do only things that benefit the beneficiaries; Not favor one beneficiary over another; Avoid conflicts of interest with the beneficiaries; Never use trust property or the trustee’s powers for personal benefit, unless the trust authorizes it. Probate court has it twisted.

The trustee has issued a 30-day notice for Maxine, her husband and her brother Raymond to vacate their property.

If the court was operating as it should, the judge would have protected the Willis family. According to the Ananias Willis’ Trust, he wanted decisions regarding his estate to be made by 60 percent of his beneficiaries.

That 60 percent say they didn’t want to sell their property or need a trustee, and they wanted to manage their property, something they did successfully for years before court interference. The court ruled against their wishes, appointed a trustee and has served them with a 30-day notice to vacate their home and is selling off the estate.

When Maxine asked the judge why she was doing this, the judge told her, “Because I can.”

Probate court is self- serving and corrupt. They could easily rule to allow the Willis-Ussery family to stay in their home and deduct the “rental payment” from their portion of the Ananias Willis Trust once it’s settled.

Maxine and other elders whose property has been taken by the courts protest every Tuesday in front 1225 Fallon St. courthouse from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. or the Berkeley Probate Court at 2120 Martin Luther King Way. They will be at Fallonnext Tuesday. Please join them.

By the time the courts have paid the judge, the trustee, and everybody else, there will not be any money left for the beneficiaries, and that’s a hard cold truth.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

4 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

5 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

7 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke