From Paul L. Cobb, Publisher

The Post will make free editorial space available for any candidate running for Mayor, City Council, School Board and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors if you have a plan, a solution or some answers to the problems facing Oakland and the county.

We are especially seeking your solution strategies for homelessness, crime and hate violence, affordable housing, economic and business opportunities for women and minorities and environmental conditions.

We expect you to use your campaign funds to introduce yourselves and educate the voters about your views and history of experiences and service. We also expect you to support, patronize and utilize minority media and other minority businesses and services as you conduct your campaigns. Space will be provided based upon proposed solutions, not on ads purchased. There will be no connection with endorsements by the Post and any amounts expended for advertisements.

Please do not send us negative remarks about your opponents to be published in the Post. If you want to engage in negative campaigning and/or diatribes against the incumbent or any out-going official, you should pay for that kind of messaging and clearly indicate your identity with those charges.

Since you have announced your intention to seek our approvals, then honor and respect us and the voters with your solutions.

In these troublous times with our streets teeming with thousands of homeless people and with fear gripping all of us from home invasions, drive-by shootings, smash-and-grab robberies and a short-handed police force, we need leaders who are unafraid to support increased public safety staffing. In short, we need to defend the police plan led by Chief Armstrong while calling for more community-oriented services such as those in the MACRO plan. But that is not enough, because unless we as citizens become more involved in anti-crime voluntary activity, matters will get worse. Activism matters.

While you might think your list of endorsements is the end-all and the be-all for your success, Y’all should be wary, because the Post/El Mundo News Group will be looking at your list of endorsed solutions for the residents.

We are big on solutions, answers and action plans.

Therefore, come big, or stay at home.

Thank you,

Paul Cobb

By Rev. Dr. Martha C. Taylor

The late T-Bone Walker, blues singer, said, “The first time I ever heard a boogie-woogie piano was when I went to church, even the sermon was preached in a blues tone while the congregation yelled amen.” Charlie Yardbird Parker, famous jazz saxophonist frequented the Bay Area during the 40s. Parker once replied to a question about his religious affiliation that he was a devout musician. Even T-Bone Walker’s friends were convinced that he would become a preacher when he stopped singing because of the way he sang the blues. They said it sounded like a sermon. Blues singer Alberta Hunter testified “The blues are like spirituals, almost sacred.”

When Southern migrants came to California during the World War II era, they transported their music with them. Music served as a reminder of home; it was like medicine for the soul. The sounds of gospel music found a popular place in the Bay Area.

Based on traditional choir and quartet singing in southern churches, a cappella gospel music enjoyed an upsurge in popularity as southern black migrants formed new singing groups that toured local communities. Shipyard workers formed gospel groups like the Singing Shipbuilders Quarter (Richmond), Rising Stars Singers (Oakland), and the Paramount Singers (San Francisco).

These two groups, whose members came primarily from Texas and Louisiana, laid the groundwork for later Bay Area gospel groups like the Golden Stars, the Golden West Singers, the Swanee River Singers, the Spartonaires, the Oakland Silvertones, and many others. Church mass choirs began to cut records under the leadership of pastors like G. W. Killens and Carl Anderson.

Opal Nations said Bishop Louis Narcisse sounded like a saved and sanctified blues singer. Blues and gospel music both expressed the struggles of life. Charles Albert Tindley wrote, “I’ll Overcome Someday,” was popular during the Civil Rights era. Betty Reid and her husband Mel Reid opened the first black gospel and blues record store in West Oakland in 1945, Reid’s Records.

Two years later, Mel acquired time on Berkeley’s KRE radio station and broadcast a weekly thirty-minute gospel program called “Religious Gems.” It takes a seasoned saint to remember Reverend George Killens, pastor, Mount Calvary Baptist Church, Oakland, his two-part sermon, “The Cross,” and his congregation singing “Father I Stretch my Hands to Thee,” Mass Choir singing was birthed in the Bay Area.

Some may recall the J. L. Richards Specials and the Voices of Evergreen Baptist Church, a mass choir that broadcast for fifteen minutes on Sunday nights on radio station KWBR and Antioch Baptist Church (featuring the Reverend R. T. George, a master preacher and musician). Sunday night was the time when all ears were tuned into the radio to hear old-fashioned preaching and singing.

“Jumpin” George Oxford was one of the beloved D. J.’s of the 1950s. His focus was on race records, catering to Blacks as did Bouncin’ Bill Doubleday on KWBR and Don Barksdale, former-basketball-star-turned D. J. in the late 1950s. Barksdale was the owner of the Sportsman on Grove Street and the Showcase on Telegraph Avenue, both in Oakland.

Ray Dobard moved from New Orleans to Berkeley during World War II. Dobard established a music publishing business, providing a chance for locals to get their music on “wax” and to a larger audience. Many of Dobard’s fine gospel sides featured King Narcissee, the Golden West Singers, and others.

Jesse Jaxyson moved to West Oakland in the 1930s. A member of the First Church of Religious Science. There he met Clarissa Mayfield, a choir member at his church, and together they set up a radio repair shop at 1606 7th Street, Oakland. He had a room converted into a makeshift recording studio that he ran along with Bob Geddins. Bob Geddins, called the ‘Father of Oakland Blues,’ began pressing records at his West Oakland plant at 8th and Center Streets.”

As we fast forward, it was Edwin and Walter Hawkins, two brothers that completely changed the genre of religious music with the remake of an eighteenth-century song, “Oh Happy Day” featuring Dorothy Morrison and the Edwin Hawkins singers became the first cross over music creating a new contemporary gospel genre. The song created controversy within the church, because it sounded secular.

The Hawkins launched a new sound of gospel music fused with a secular sound paving the way for future artists such as Kirk Franklin, Byron Cage, Fred Hamond, Yolonda Adams and more.

By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and Jim Winston

Thus far, 2022 has been a year of multiple socioeconomic and political challenges for all Americans.

Yet for African Americans and other communities of color, this year represents both challenges and opportunities from a business ownership perspective. In particular, for Black-owned media businesses there is a growing sense of resilience even in the face of continued profound racial disparities and societal inequities.

The communications and media industry in America especially should be one of the leading industries that adopts the “good business” sense to embrace the values and benefits of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). This is not about charity or benevolence. Diversity is objectively good for business.

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) are working together to encourage the media and advertising industries to become more proactive and committed to diversity from the C-suites to the decision-making managers. But more needs to be done to increase and to enhance the ownership of media businesses by African Americans and other minorities.

Economic equity in media requires equal access to investment capital, technical advances in communications infrastructure, and inclusion in other industry innovations. As increased changes in the racial demographics of the nation continue to accelerate in the United States, American media must be more representative of the growing diversity of the nation.

It is noteworthy, therefore, that one of the recently announced major media mergers has Standard General, a minority-owned firm, pending regulatory reviews and approvals by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, acquiring TEGNA, a company owning 64 television stations around the country.

Soo Kim, a successful Asian American business leader, who serves as Standard General’s founding and managing partner, emphasized “We’re open to exploring new partnership models to get diverse viewpoints and perspectives on the air and to make sure people have the resources to do it.”

We agree with this sentiment as multiracial ownership of American media businesses will continue to be viewed as a strategic forecast for the future economic wellbeing of the nation. We intend to raise our voices in support of the positive economic and social-equity consequences of diversifying American media.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has pointed out, “Access to the media by the broadest sector of society is crucial to ensuring that diverse viewpoints are presented to the American people, but racial and gender disparities in media ownership dating back to the beginning of the civil rights era continue to persist.” Again, overcoming these disparities should be a national media industry priority.

“At a time when more people, particularly Black people, are distrustful of the media, diversity in media ownership,” the Leadership Conference argues, “has become more important than ever for the functioning of our democracy. Diversity in ownership is part of that solution.”

We agree with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ position on this issue.

Lastly, as our nation today prepares for the upcoming midterm elections in November, there are many who are predicting low overall voter turnout. Millions of dollars will be spent on Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) campaigns. Those who desire to increase GOTV among African- Americans and other communities of color will have to engage Black-owned media as the “Trusted Voice” of Black America in order to increase voter turnout.

Jim Winston is President and CEO of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) headquartered in Washington, DC. 

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) headquartered in Washington, DC.