Community
‘Not a day off.’ — Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Oakland
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday is a day off for many—but in Oakland, it’s a day on for service and activism.
A Day of Activism
By Post Staff
Hundreds took to the streets on what would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s 90th birthday—Monday, Jan. 21.
The Anti Police-Terror Project, a local activist group dedicated to fighting police brutality, organized the fifth annual march to “Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
The event began with a sunrise ceremony, followed by a march through downtown Oakland. Those marching chanted against white supremacy and racism, tying together several issues facing Oaklanders—gentrification, racial profiling, and immigrants’ rights.
APTP held “people’s assemblies” outside City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza, occupying the plaza for 10 hours.
This Jan. 1 marked 10 years since the killing of Oscar Grant, a young Black man wrongfully shot by a BART police officer at Fruitvale BART station. His family, and the families of other police-slain young men called for justice.
After the march, Lead to Life, an organization that buys back guns and transforms them into shovels for planting trees, joined protesters at City Hall. They melted guns in the plaza ceremoniously, casting sparks into the air as dancers wielded the shovels—now tools of life—in celebration.
Lead to Life buys back guns “to transform that which ends life into that which sustains life – to facilitate an alchemical healing process that can physically transform both our weapons and our imaginations.”
A Day of Service
By Howard Dyckoff
The MLK Day of Service and holiday were celebrated by cleanup and service projects all over Oakland—two in Deep East Oakland. Over 300 volunteers showed up at MLK Shoreline Park and more than 100 volunteers focused on restoring the quality of Arroyo Viejo Park, a stone’s throw from Eastmont Mall.
Over 2,400 volunteers participated at 35 parks and recreation sites throughout the City of Oakland.
Dwayne Atkins, the organizer of the cleanup at Arroyo Viejo and co-founder of We Lead Ours (WELO), has organized volunteer days here for the last several years. “It’s important for folks to come out and to participate because it really brings the community together. It’s great to see so many families and ethnicities here, and I know Brother Dr. Martin Luther King would be smiling today,” Atkins said.
The project at AV included tree planting, mulching, plant pruning, removing debris from the creek, and general cleanup around the park recreation center and park parking lots. Yoon Jae, mother of two daughters, said this event would teach children to improve the environment and also to give back to communities in need. The purpose, she said, is “helping communities and teaching kids to help build a better Oakland, It’s good for them to see with their own eyes the difference we can make.”
At the MLK Shoreline, (accessible from Oakport Drive, near the Coliseum) volunteer efforts were organized by the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), and Save the Bay, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving San Francisco Bay.
Park Naturalist Michael Charnofsky spoke with small clusters of volunteers after they registered to explain the effort and the environmental factors behind it. Pollution of the Bay is a regional problem—trash from other cities winds up here on Oakland’s Bay shores.
“Every creek that goes into the Bay is a source of trash,” Charnofsky said. “Most of the trash in the Bay comes from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. We’ve had a lot of high tides with strong winds,” he said, “and that’s blown a lot of trash into the Bay.”
Charnofsky said EBRPD expected over 250 volunteers to attend the cleanup, including families with kids and also industry groups like Kaiser Permanente and Netapp. “Its a good turnout,” he said.
Back at Arroyo Viejo, Atkins explained his personal mission at the park. “This park is very special to me,” he said. “I grew up near this park, I used to come here to play as a child.
When I started my first non-profit, I did my first community day camp here.
“Being on the City Parks Commission, I want to be hands-on, participating in the park. I also want to make it safe for a child to come play…too many young people have lost their lives in this park, walking through at night time. So, I think it’s important for the community to come together on this.”
Congress designated the MLK Day federal holiday as a national day of service in 1994. The MLK Day of Service is intended to empower individuals, strengthen communities and move us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a “Beloved Community.” The day is part of President Obama’s national initiative, United We Serve, which is led by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The initiative was launched by first lady Michelle Obama in 2009 as a way of meeting community needs.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of November 27 – December 3, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 27 – December 3, 2024, 2024
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Giving Birth Shouldn’t Be a Nightmare for Black Women
WORD IN BLACK — Now, more than two years after the fact, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected a women’s right to an abortion, has complicated things for physicians like Joy Baker, an OB-GYN in LaGrange, Georgia. In Southern states with some of the strictest abortion bans like Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, Black women are facing more barriers to access reproductive health care.
By Anissa Durham | Word In Black
(WIB) – At 40 weeks pregnant, Georgina Dukes-Harris drove to her weekly OB-GYN appointment in Clemson, South Carolina. It was 8 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2011. The doctor told her there’s no need for her son to “bake any longer.” So, the first-time mom returned, as instructed, at 6 p.m. on the same day. Health care providers gave her Pitocin to induce labor.
Next, they gave her an epidural and broke her water. Dukes-Harris was now on a time clock. She had 48 hours to give birth before complications could set in for her and the baby. Even though her cervix wasn’t fully dilated to 10 centimeters, doctors told her to push.
Four to five hours of pushing and nothing was happening.
“I was pushing, and they used forceps to try to pull him out, and it left a big scar on his head.” she says, “It’s like I had two births in one.”
At that point, Dukes-Harris’ heart rate spiked, and the baby showed signs of distress. Doctors decided to give her an emergency C-section on Dec. 16, which she describes as a deeply traumatic experience.
At 19-years-old and in the best shape of her life, Dukes-Harris recalls following her doctors’ instructions to a T. But the trauma that came with her unplanned C-section left her dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety for more than a year afterward.
Dukes-Harris’s story is one of many that highlight the challenges Black birthing people face in America. Maternal care deserts, abortion bans, and the overutilization of C-section have all traumatized and even ended the lives of Black women. Now Black birthing people, physicians, and holistic care providers are pushing for a more patient-centered approach.
Black Mothers Face Higher Risks and Limited Options
A 2024 March of Dimes report found that 35% of U.S. counties are maternity care deserts, which are counties with no birthing facilities or obstetric clinicians. Chronic conditions related to poor health outcomes for birthing people like pre-pregnancy obesity, hypertension, and diabetes have increased since 2015 and are most common in maternity care deserts. These conditions are also most common among Black and American Indian and Alaska Native birthing people.
Pregnant people who give birth in counties that are identified as maternity care deserts or low access areas have poorer health before pregnancy, receive less prenatal care, and experience higher rates of preterm births. Most states have between one and nine birth centers, but that still leaves 70% of all birth centers residing within 10 states.
“We serve four different counties that do not have any OB-GYNs at all,” says Joy Baker, an OB-GYN in LaGrange, Georgia. “The real issue is these are communities that already have diminished access to social determinants of health … I think of them as political determinants of health. These places don’t become under resourced by accident.”
Barriers to Maternal Health Care
Pregnant people in areas identified as maternity care deserts often travel between 26 to 38 minutes for obstetric care. During pregnancy and childbirth, longer travel time is associated with higher risk of maternal morbidity, stillbirth, and neonatal intensive care unit admission, the report states. And Black women are already at a higher risk for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and postpartum hemorrhage.
“There’s not one condition that I can think of that gets better in pregnancy,” Baker says. “It’s usually exacerbated.”
Now, more than two years after fact, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected a women’s right to an abortion, has complicated things for physicians like Baker. In Southern states with some of the strictest abortion bans like Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, Black women are facing more barriers to access reproductive health care.
But it’s not just patients who are struggling.
Each state has a different abortion ban or restriction, often making it unclear as to what a physician is able to do. For example, in Georgia, abortion is restricted to six weeks or less. Although the law has exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” the language is vague and can leave loopholes for doctors to be prosecuted if a physician intervenes too early.
In Baker’s personal practice, she hasn’t been affected too much by the abortion bans. But she says there are physicians in neighboring counties that have struggled with caring for their patients due to the law.
“Doctors are afraid. When you have spent your entire life training and building a career, the last thing you want is to go to prison for just doing your job,” Baker says. “There is a lot of fear surrounding that. It’s been horrible to the physician patient relationship.”
Birthing Shouldn’t Be Traumatic
At 38 weeks pregnant, Lauren Elliot’s doctor told her the umbilical cord was wrapped around her son’s neck at least three times. Later, they realized it was wrapped around his neck five times. Delivering vaginally no longer became an option when her son was in distress. Elliot, 29 at the time, had a C-section.
“I was paralyzed with emotion from wanting him to be OK,” she says.
Shortly afterward she developed postpartum preeclampsia. And like Dukes-Harris, Elliot, now 36, described a C-section as a traumatic experience. Although her son was delivered healthy, the mental health toll from her first birthing experience loomed over her for two years. She struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. To cope she created Candlelit Care, an app-based behavioral health clinic that supports Black birthing people throughout a pregnancy and afterwards.
For her next pregnancy, Elliot determined to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean section or VBAC. But many doctors worry about a uterine rupture even if a patient has fully healed from a C-section. She also made the intentional decision to have a Black OB-GYN.
But even that wasn’t enough.
During labor with her second child, Elliot wasn’t dilating fast enough. Then, doctors informed her she would need to have a second cesarean. Initially, she felt like a failure for not being able to have a vaginal birth. But she finds comfort in knowing she at least experienced labor.
In 2023, according to the World Health Organization, about one in three births in the United States were C-sections.
There are a few reasons why.
The overutilization of C-sections, Baker says, is because physicians are afraid of malpractice claims and lawsuits. While in training, she recalls physicians encouraging a C-section because “you never have to apologize when the baby comes out.” But this default decision has increased the risk of complications for patients.
“Not only is it a traumatic mental imprint that is forever left (on a patient),” Baker says, but they also face an increased risk of hemorrhage, infection, and postpartum complications. “There is a time where a C-section is needed … but this whole knee-jerk reaction to just do a C-section, if you’re unsure, needs to stop.”
Will I Die Giving Birth?
In 2023, when Dukes-Harris became pregnant again at 33, she was determined to do things differently with her birthing experience. To prepare for her daughter’s arrival, Dukes-Harris got a prenatal chiropractor and hired a team of three doulas and a home birth midwife.
“I can’t die giving birth,” she says. “My OB-GYN said that having a baby at 30-plus, over 300 pounds, is basically a death sentence.”
But her diagnosed anxiety kicked in and led her back to the hospital at 4 a.m.
“I physically prepared, but I didn’t mentally prepare for birth,” she says. “I was having an out-of-body experience.”
Doctors wanted to push for a C-section, but Dukes-Harris refused. Once her 6-foot-5 husband and midwife entered the room, she was able to successfully deliver her daughter vaginally. Now, after two birthing experiences that didn’t go exactly as planned, she created swishvo, a platform that connects patients and providers to access holistic health options.
On a national scale, certified nurse midwives have been shown to improve birth outcomes for Black and American Indian, and Alaska Native communities. Currently, 27 states and D.C. have policies that allow certified nurse midwives full practice authority.
“Community-based birth workers, doulas, nurse navigators, lactation consultants, childbirth educators, we need all of that,” Baker says. “Our doulas are magnificent; they educate patients. We’re not able to do this by ourselves as physicians and midwives. We need a community of care for our patients.”
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Odessa Woolfolk Honored at Reception with 2024 Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award
BIRMINGHAM TIMES — “That is an award of a lifetime,” Woolfolk said before the ceremony. “Rev. Shuttlesworth has been my idol since I first met him when he was here doing his work in the late ’50s and ’60s. To be associated with his values, his mission, his courage, his belief in people, equality and justice to … have something on my shelf that associates me with those values doesn’t get better than that.”
The Birmingham Times
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) last week presented Odessa Woolfolk, the city’s renowned educator, civic leader and lifelong advocate for civil and human rights, with the 2024 Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award.
“That is an award of a lifetime,” Woolfolk said before the ceremony. “Rev. Shuttlesworth has been my idol since I first met him when he was here doing his work in the late ’50s and ’60s. To be associated with his values, his mission, his courage, his belief in people, equality and justice to … have something on my shelf that associates me with those values doesn’t get better than that.”
The award, named after the legendary civil rights leader and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), recognizes individuals who have made enduring contributions to the ongoing fight for equality, justice and human dignity.
“We are honored to present the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award to Odessa Woolfolk, whose lifelong dedication to human and civil rights has shaped the course of history in Birmingham and beyond,” said Rosilyn Houston, newly elected chair of the BCRI Board of Directors, in a statement. “Her vision, leadership and tireless advocacy continue to inspire new generations to stand up for justice and equality. Odessa Woolfolk exemplifies the very essence of what this award stands for.”
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