News

Oakland Mourns Victims, Seeks Answers in Apartment Fire That Killed 4

Published

10 years ago

March 30, 2017

Oaklanders are in mourning and seeking answers in the wake of a fire that destroyed a three-story transitional housing building at 2551 San Pablo Ave. in West Oakland, where four people died Monday, leaving 80 homeless, including many children.

Authorities as of mid-week had identified two victims, Edwarn Anderson, 64, and Cassandra Robertson, 50. Aid workers seeking help for the displaced residents. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Anderson, known as the deacon, was considered by many of the residents to be a very helpful man who went out of his way to aid people in the building, unplugging backed-up toilets, painting the walls or dealing with other problems.

Cassandra Robertson

According to reports, Robertson moved to the Bay Area from New Orleans at age 19, She returned to Louisiana about four years ago, but recently came back to the Bay Area.

Many of those displaced by the fire lost all their possessions and are staying in a shelter. In an outpouring of support, local residents are donating clothes and other items to aid survivors of the fire.

According to Pastor Debra Avery of the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, as of Wednesday evening, donations are requested for new and barely used adult clothes. The need at the shelter now is especially for children’s school clothing (all sizes) and school supplies, she said.

Oakland is a generous and supportive community that I know will rally around these residents – many of whom are among the most vulnerable in our community. Now more than ever they need our assistance,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Donations should be delivered to two locations: from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Brothers Barbershop at 1498-7th St.: and from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Word Assembly Church, 767 Pine St.
Questions continue to be raised about what the city could have been done to prevent the fire.

In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Mayor Schaaf said the city has improved its enforcement efforts involving dangerous buildings following the Ghostship warehouse fire in which 36 people died in December 2016.

In the wake the warehouse fire, she had pledged to improve internal communications between city departments after learning that city officials and agencies were told of a safety problem at the warehouse but it was not inspected.

Schaaf said firefighters answering a call in February at San Pablo residence had reported possible problems, prompting an inspection last Friday that found deficient sprinklers, alarms and smoke detectors.

She said city officials lacked the authority to immediately shutter the apartments because they are required to give the owner time to fix the problems, according to AP.

On Feb. 23, the city sent a notice of violation to the owner of the building after someone complained about the building, saying there was a “large amount of trash and debris, building materials, (and) furniture in back of property.”

But the building was not inspected until last Friday, March 24.

According to the East Bay Times, the inspector found 11 severe fire hazards, including extension cords being used instead of wall outlets. His report said that fire extinguishers, emergency lighting and marked exits must be maintained and provided throughout the building, and smoke detectors in each unit.

The inspector also demanded immediate service and certification of the fire alarm system and fire sprinkler system, but he didn’t order the residential building, evacuated and closed.

He did not “order the building owner to place a person on ‘fire watch’ to patrol the structure until repairs were made, as state law allows, the East Bay Times said.

The fire took place three days later.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 7 – 13, 2026

Published

2 days ago

October 13, 2026

Oakland Post

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Black History

Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Publishes Global Circle’s Vatican Reparations Call in Special Edition Alongside Heads of State

GLOBAL CIRCLE FOR REPARATIONS AND HEALING — Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing’s submission, “From Accra to the Vatican,” in a special edition of The Ghanaian Envoy. This marks the first time a sovereign state has incorporated the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” also documents Ghana’s campaign that led to UN Resolution A/RES/80/250, which recognized the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

Published

1 week ago

October 7, 2026

Post News Group

International responses to Ghana-led UN resolutions declaring the transatlantic enslavemen the gravest crime against humanity

“From Accra to the Vatican” appears in The Ghanaian Envoy Special Edition on UN Resolution A/RES/80/250 — the first time a sovereign state has carried the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record

ACCRA, Ghana / CHICAGO, Illinois — October 7, 2026 — The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing today announced that its submission to Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “From Accra to the Vatican: A Call for a Global Plan of Action on Catholic Church Redress”, has been published in the Special Edition of The Ghanaian Envoy, the official newsletter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ghana. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” documents the Ghana-led campaign that culminated on March 25, 2026, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/80/250, which declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity.

The Global Circle’s submission, authored by Co-Convener Kamm Howard, appears in Part V of the edition, “What Repair Must Now Mean,” at page 161. It shares the volume with statements by President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr. of Liberia, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of Namibia, President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye of Senegal, President Carlos Manuel Vila Nova of São Tomé and Príncipe, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, African Union Commissioner Amma Twum-Amoah, CARICOM Reparations Commission Chair Sir Hilary Beckles, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Dr. Julius Garvey, and Congressional Black Caucus Executive Director Vincent Evans, among others.

The submission traces the Global Circle’s delivery of the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City on July 18, 2022, the document’s subsequent use by the former Vice President of Costa Rica and the Vice President of Colombia in their engagements with Pope Francis, and the partial response contained in Pope Leo XIV’s May 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. It argues that while three of the Presentment’s seven demands have entered the Church’s official language in diluted form, four remain wholly unmet: rescission of the papal bulls that authorized African enslavement, the Church’s call upon other offending Western nations to make redress, the establishment of a joint Vatican–African Diaspora–African Papal Commission on Reparations and Healing, and a substantial financial commitment to repair. The submission asks Ghana to adopt the Presentment as the reference instrument for a Vatican track within the Accra Next Steps Commitments and to convene a first meeting of Global African reparationists toward a collective response.

“For four years the Presentment has been a civil society document carried by civil society hands,” said Kamm Howard, Co-Convener of the Global Circle and Commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission. “Ghana has now placed it in the official record of a sovereign state, in a volume that opens with a President’s address to the General Assembly and closes by asking what repair must mean. That is not a courtesy. It is a signal to every government, every reparations commission, and every African Catholic that the claim against the Holy See belongs on the state agenda, and that the state which broke the deadlock at the United Nations is prepared to see it there.”

The significance of the publication extends beyond the Vatican file. The Presentment was created as a legal claims instrument by Howard in 2014 and first delivered to corporations and institutions in the United States, where it secured significant concessions. Its appearance in a foreign ministry’s official publication, translated and distributed in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, establishes the reparations presentment as a recognized instrument of international reparatory diplomacy, one that other states and descendant communities can adopt without drafting a new framework of their own. The Global Circle has described this catalytic potential as the “N’namba Effect,” after the Evanston, Illinois, reparations initiative – led by N’nanba Robin Rue Simmons – that gave municipalities across the United States the model, permission, and courage to act.

“The Vatican told us in 2022 that it moves in fifteen-year increments,” Howard added. “Ghana has just demonstrated at the United Nations that a determined state can compress that timeline to a single vote. We are asking Ghana to do for the Church what it did for the General Assembly, and we are asking Global Africa to organize behind that ask with one document, one voice, and one set of demands.”

The Global Circle has written to President Mahama and Foreign Minister Ablakwa to express its gratitude and to propose that its Vatican and Interreligious Actors Working Group lead the first meeting on a collective Vatican response under the auspices of the Government of Ghana. The Global Circle has also formally advised the Congressional Black Caucus of the publication in connection with its pending request that the Caucus recognize the Presentment as the foundational document for reparations engagement with the Roman Catholic Church and join the Government of Ghana in this global call to action.

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About the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing was convened in 2022 to help build united global reparations front across Africa and its worldwide diaspora. In July 2022 the Global Circle delivered the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City. It co-organized Accra Summit I in August 2022 with the Government of Ghana and the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, and led the organization of Accra Summit II: Centering Healing Across Global Africa in March 2025 in partnership with the African Union. The Reparations Presentment to the Holy See is available in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish at gcrh.org.

Media Contact

Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

Kamm Howard, Co-Convenor

Kammh369@gmail.com 773 520 0369

gcrh.org