September 1, 2009
Next month the most important item on my agenda is Maafa Commemoration Month to reflect on the legacy of slavery and how everyone benefited from this human rights travesty except those who did the work. We began Aug. 30 with a successful Maafa 2009: Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser and Reportback, thanks to all the poets and the visual artists who donated art for the silent auction and of course to Tess and Yeme, the proprietors of Shashamane Bar and Grill.
March 24, 2009
On March 21, Lovelle Mixon, 26, was murdered by Oakland police after allegedly killing four of them on MacArthur Blvd off of 73rd Avenue in East Oakland. Listen to JR’s Block Report interview with his family – his mother, Athena, his wife, Amara, and her sister, Alicia – broadcast March 30 on KPFA’s Flashpoints at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49609.
February 4, 2009
RIP Oscar Grant III. You, unarmed, pleading for your life as a young father, at the tender age of 22, while a rogue Bay Area Rapid Transit cop Tony Pirone punches you, then crushes your neck with his knee, shortly followed in his enthusiastic, racist, vicious rage by Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shoots you in the back, murdering you.
October 17, 2008
Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Prescott Joseph Center we honored the legacy of the San Francisco Bay Area’s premiere artists: Berkeley resident Joy Holland and Oaklander by way of St. Louis Casper Banjo, with featured artist Keith Hopkins, another Oaklander. The exhibit is titled “Breath of Our Ancestors.”