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Oakland’s Black-Eyed Pea Festival Celebrates Black History in Music, Food and Art

Celebrating African American legacy through food, music and art, Oakland’s Ninth Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival will be bigger and better at its new location at Marston Campbell Park in West Oakland on Sept. 14. Appealing to all ages, the free festival will feature African American traditional music from several genres including straight-ahead jazz, New Orleans-style second-line and Zydeco.

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Zydeco accordionist Andre Thierry will be featured at the 9th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, at Marston Campbell Park at 17th and West streets in West Oakland from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. This is a FREE community event for all ages. Photo courtesy Andre Thierry.
Zydeco accordionist Andre Thierry will be featured at the 9th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, at Marston Campbell Park at 17th and West streets in West Oakland from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. This is a FREE community event for all ages. Photo courtesy Andre Thierry.

Post Staff

Celebrating African American legacy through food, music and art, Oakland’s Ninth Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival will be bigger and better at its new location at Marston Campbell Park in West Oakland on Sept. 14.

Appealing to all ages, the free festival will feature African American traditional music from several genres including straight-ahead jazz, New Orleans-style second-line and Zydeco.  Our full line-up includes headliner Andre Thierry Accordion Soul Music (Zydeco); MJ’s Brass Boppers (second-line); Valerie Troutt’s MoonCandy, and Dimensions Dance Theatre.

The festival will begin with sacred acknowledgment of the land by Wakan-Wiya  Two-Spirit Drum and Awon Ohun Omnira’s drumming homage to African ancestors.

Especially for kids

The BEPF is providing dedicated fun for children.

From 1:30-2:30, the festival has entertainment for children by youth members of the Prescott Circus including stilt walkers, juggling, and tumbling. They will remain on hand for the day so children can learn the African roots of circus arts.

Patanisha Williams will provide arts and crafts for toddlers up to early teens, using black-eyed peas as well as drawing and painting with a focus on Ghana’s Adinkra ‘alphabet’ of symbols.

For adults, Bushmama will conduct an indigo dying workshop, referencing the African origins of the plant cultivated by enslaved Africans that would eventually give rise to the denim industry.

Hand-made items for sale by people of African descent will include among others the paintings, mugs and prints by the festival’s poster designer Karin Turner.

 Come and eat

Local chefs from Ate O Clock catering and Coco Breeze restaurant offer typical soul food and Trinidadian fare, including black-eyed peas. Hal Stephen’ will have your festival fare – hot dogs and hamburgers – but also a vegan Black-eyed pea patty.

Why a Black-Eyed Pea Festival?

“The black-eyed pea is a metaphor for what is resilient, creative, and collaborative about African-American culture,” said Wanda Ravernell, director of the Black-Eyed Pea Festival and founder of Omnira Institute.

“We are especially pleased to have a range of genres in this year’s line-up because it brings to mind the time when Oakland’s Seventh Street was the ‘Harlem of the West,’” Ravernell said.   Gentrification has almost finished the job that the construction of the Grove Shafter Freeway, BART tracks and the Post Office did in dividing what had once been a thriving Black community.

The sound of the music, the scent of the food and the creativity of the artists invokes that time of prosperity.  “Their work is entertaining, but it’s also a history lesson and a healing.”

The festival is sponsored by the Post News group and receives support from the California Arts Council, The San Francisco Foundation, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and the Center for Cultural Power.

“This festival brings our mission to life,” says Ravernell. “We want to highlight and preserve the cultural and spiritual traditions of African Americans and demonstrate how these traditions are connected to Africa and the African Diaspora.”

The festival still has a few slots left for vendors of African descent who create their own work. The fee is $70. The City of Oakland requires vendors to have an Oakland business license as well as a temporary seller’s permit.

For more information on vending opportunities or the festival in general, please see our web site www.oakbepf.com or email us at oakbepf@gmail.com or call (510) 332-5851.

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Who: The 9th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival

When: Sat. Sept. 14, 2024

Where: Marston Campbell Park, 17th and West Streets, Oakland CA, 94607

Time: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

What:  Jazz, Second line bands, Black entrepreneurs, soul food and a special pavilion for children

Entry: Free

Quote: “We are celebrating the creativity and resiliency of African American heritage through food, music and art.”

For more information, call 510-332-5851

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: On Love

King entered college at age fifteen and after graduation, he was named associate pastor at his father’s church. At age twenty-five, he became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. In late 1956, he was apprehended for his part in the bus boycott there, his first of many arrests for non-violent protests and activism for Civil Rights. But when asked if those things were what he hoped he’d be honored for in years to come, King said he wanted to be remembered as “’someone who tried to love somebody.’”

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“On Love” Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper Collins.
“On Love” Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper Collins.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., c.2024, Harper Collins, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, $18.99    

Turn the volume up, please.

You need it louder because this is something you’ve been waiting to hear. You need to listen very closely; these words mean a great deal to you, and they might change your life. As in the new book, “On Love” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the message beneath the message is the most important.

As the grandson and great-grandson of pastors and the son of the senior pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, it may seem as though young Martin Luther King, Jr., born in 1929, already had his life set.

King entered college at age fifteen and after graduation, he was named associate pastor at his father’s church. At age twenty-five, he became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. In late 1956, he was apprehended for his part in the bus boycott there, his first of many arrests for non-violent protests and activism for Civil Rights.

But when asked if those things were what he hoped he’d be honored for in years to come, King said he wanted to be remembered as “’someone who tried to love somebody.’”

His words, essays, letters, and speeches reflect that desire.

In a 1955 sermon in Montgomery, he used a parable to explain why White people needed love to gain compassion. In 1956, he wrote about the bombing of his home, telling his readers that no retaliation was needed, that to “confront the problem with love” was the righteous and better thing to do.

Later that year, he said, “I want you to love our enemies… Love them and let them know you love them.” And in November, 1956, he said, “If you have not love, it means nothing.”

“Love is the greatest force in all the world,” he said in 1962.

He wrote a book on the subject, Strength to Love, in 1963.

In 1967, just months before his assassination, he said that “power at its best is love.”

When we talk about Dr. King’s life and his legacy, so much focus is put on his work on behalf of Civil Rights and equality that it’s easy to lose sight of the thing which he felt was more important. In “On Love,” any omission is rectified nicely.

This book, “excerpted to highlight the material where King specifically addressed the topic of love,” is full of pleasant surprises, words with impact, and thought provokers. King’s speeches hammered home a need to love one’s enemies, woven into messages of gentle resistance and strength. He explained the different “levels” of love in a way that makes sense when related to equality and justice. The bits and pieces collected here will linger in reader’s minds, poking and prodding and reminding.

If your shelves are full of books about Dr. King, know that this is a unique one, and it’s perfect for our times, now. Don’t race through it; instead, savor what you’ll read and keep it close. “On Love” is a book you’ll want to turn to, often.

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Arts and Culture

Book Review: Building the Worlds That Kill Us: Disease, Death, and Inequality in American History

Nearly five years ago, while interviewing residents along the Mississippi River in Louisiana for a book they were writing, authors Rosner and Markowitz learned that they’d caused a little brouhaha. Large corporations in the area, ones that the residents of “a small, largely African American community” had battled over air and soil contamination and illness, didn’t want any more “’agitators’” poking around. They’d asked a state trooper to see if the authors were going to cause trouble.

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Courtesy of Columbia University Press
Courtesy of Columbia University Press.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

 Author: David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, c.2024, Columbia University Press, $28.00

Get lots of rest.

That’s always good advice when you’re ailing. Don’t overdo. Don’t try to be Superman or Supermom, just rest and follow your doctor’s orders.

And if, as in the new book, “Building the Worlds That Kill Us” by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, the color of your skin and your social strata are a certain way, you’ll feel better soon.

Nearly five years ago, while interviewing residents along the Mississippi River in Louisiana for a book they were writing, authors Rosner and Markowitz learned that they’d caused a little brouhaha. Large corporations in the area, ones that the residents of “a small, largely African American community” had battled over air and soil contamination and illness, didn’t want any more “’agitators’” poking around. They’d asked a state trooper to see if the authors were going to cause trouble.

For Rosner and Markowitz, this underscored “what every thoughtful person at least suspects”: that age, geography, immigrant status, “income, wealth, race, gender, sexuality, and social position” largely impacts the quality and availability of medical care.

It’s been this way since Europeans first arrived on North American shores.

Native Americans “had their share of illness and disease” even before the Europeans arrived and brought diseases that decimated established populations. There was little-to-no medicine offered to slaves on the Middle Passage because a ship owner’s “financial calculus… included the price of disease and death.”  According to the authors, many enslavers weren’t even “convinced” that the cost of feeding their slaves was worth the work received.

Factory workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s worked long weeks and long days under sometimes dangerous conditions, and health care was meager; Depression-era workers didn’t fare much better. Black Americans were used for medical experimentation. And just three years ago, the American Lung Association reported that “’people of color’ disproportionately” lived in areas where the air quality was particularly dangerous.

So, what does all this mean? Authors David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz don’t seem to be too optimistic, for one thing, but in “Building the Worlds That Kill Us,” they do leave readers with a thought-provoker: “we as a nation … created this dark moment and we have the ability to change it.” Finding the “how” in this book, however, will take serious between-the-lines reading.

If that sounds ominous, it is. Most of this book is, in fact, quite dismaying, despite that there are glimpses of pushback here and there, in the form of protests and strikes throughout many decades. You may notice, if this is a subject you’re passionate about, that the histories may be familiar but deeper than you might’ve learned in high school. You’ll also notice the relevance to today’s healthcare issues and questions, and that’s likewise disturbing.

This is by no means a happy-happy vacation book, but it is essential reading if you care about national health issues, worker safety, public attitudes, and government involvement in medical care inequality. You may know some of what’s inside “Building the Worlds That Kill Us,” but now you can learn the rest.

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Arts and Culture

‘Giants Rising’ Film Screening in Marin City Library

A journey into the heart of America’s most iconic forests, “Giants Rising” tells the epic tale of the coast redwoods — the tallest and among the oldest living beings on Earth. Living links to the past, redwoods hold powers that may play a role in our future, including their ability to withstand fire and capture carbon, to offer clues about longevity, and to enhance our own well-being.

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A woman stands amid towering redwood trees in a forest. Photo courtesy of Marin County Free Library.
A woman stands amid towering redwood trees in a forest. Photo courtesy of Marin County Free Library.

By Godfrey Lee

The film “Giants Rising” will be screened on Saturday, Jan. 11, from 3-6 p.m. at the St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, located 100 Donahue St. in Marin City.

A journey into the heart of America’s most iconic forests, “Giants Rising” tells the epic tale of the coast redwoods — the tallest and among the oldest living beings on Earth. Living links to the past, redwoods hold powers that may play a role in our future, including their ability to withstand fire and capture carbon, to offer clues about longevity, and to enhance our own well-being.

Through the voices of scientists, artists, Native communities, and others, we discover the many connections that sustain these forests and the promise of solutions that will help us all rise up to face the challenges that lay ahead.

The film’s website is www.giantsrising.com. The “Giants Rising” trailer is at https://player.vimeo.com/video/904153467. The registration link to the event is https://marinlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/673de7abb41279410057889e

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Marin City Library and hosted in conjunction with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and St. Andrew Presbyterian Church.

All library events are free. For more information, contact Etienne Douglas at (415) 332-6158 or email etienne.douglas@marincounty.gov. For event-specific information, contact Zaira Sierra at zsierra@parksconservancy.org.

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