Tag: West Oakland

Oakland and San Francisco organizers are fighting data centers they say will drain resources, pollute Black neighborhoods and help billionaires automate away jobs. The struggle, rooted in the Panthers’ demand for community control of technology, is pushing for people—not corporations—to decide what gets built and who benefits.

West Oakland artist Derick Davies paints colorism, mental struggle, public suffering and Black self-love with the honesty of someone refusing to hide. In this Q&A, the 19-year-old artist talks about Oakland, freedom and building a life where his art supports his family and reaches the world.

Juju’s Productions brings “House of Velvet: Halloween” to Yoshi’s Oakland on Oct. 31, opening a three-part burlesque series of mystery, glamour, live vocals, dance and unapologetic sensuality. The new production expands on Juju’s work honoring Black entertainment culture in West Oakland while inviting audiences into a spooky, playful world of its own.

Donald Lacy discusses the LoveLife Foundation’s 2026 College Summer Prep graduates, all 12 of whom have been accepted to four-year colleges. The Oakland program is seeking scholarship support for students pursuing higher education and bringing their knowledge back to the community.

The Griot Party Experience will bring spoken word, hip hop, storytelling, comedy and theater to the Poetry for the People Block Party in West Oakland. In this Q&A, Logic Amen discusses the collective’s roots, its healing-centered mission and the role of spoken word in Black liberation.

A Black and Indigenous-owned quarter-acre sanctuary in deep West Oakland is redefining what community healing can look like.

Tenants and working class people of the world will be familiar with our cause because there is a common thread we are all experiencing: exploitation at the hands of the 1%, who are committed to putting profit over The People!

Gentrifiers, the City and developers all share responsibility for gentrification – the process and system that created the encampments. For years, Oakland leaders wanted to make Oakland a hipster playground. They invested in making Oakland attractive to outsiders – gentrifiers. City planners courted the businesses and high-end condos that catered to them. Making Oakland into a hipster playground meant whitening, or at least “de-blackening,” Oakland. The fact that the “hip” people are mainly white and the people in the encampments mainly Black reminds us that not everyone benefits equally from the “new” Oakland.

Well-known veteran musician and producer Philip Hennen, aka “Phil the Mil(lionaire),” will soon be sharing a different aspect of his immense creativity. On this coming First Friday, May 5, 2017, from 6 to 9 p.m., Philip will showcase his striking “Mood City” photography, at the beautiful Joyce Gordon Gallery in downtown Oakland. Recently, Philip sat down to discuss his artistry with the Bay View’s Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at.

BlockReportRadio.com interviews Oakland rap king J Stalin about his coming up in Bay Area Hip Hop. We talk about his relationships with people like Shady Nate, pioneers Dj Daryl and Richie Rich, the Mechanix, the Demolition Men, the Delinquents, PTB, Beeda Weeda, and the Jacka. He also talks about what was going on in his life in between his many albums. Check out BlockReportRadio.com for more.

The air has gotten worse, not better. So these are some of the things that are caused by the dust, the construction and the latent chemicals they have not cleaned up since World War II – plus the current concentration of light industry just outside our neighborhood that all blows into our neighborhood. Yet currently less than 1 percent of African Americans who live in Bayview work in that area and reap the economic benefits. All we get is the pollution and death.

There are concerns cited by the 2015-2016 Grand Jury report about my representation of the community’s concerns with a proposed development adjacent to my home. Prior to my election to office, an out of town investor purchased a historic Victorian house next to my home with the stated intention to rehabilitate it. The neighbors welcomed the promised renovation of the home and volunteered to keep watch over the site.

Ty-Licia Hooker is one of the most dynamic Black women working in Oakland for the good of the Black community and other underserved communities. This former Black Girls Rock awardee is the executive director of Boost! West Oakland, a non-profit dedicated to empowering young people and strengthening their academic performance. They were just awarded the prestigious Partner Organization of the Year Award from the Oakland Unified School District.

The Qilombo Collective reclaimed a plot of land on San Pablo and West Grand that had been neglected for decades and put a community garden on it. Recently, they have been ordered to move the garden, and the people feel like there should be space in the city for people to learn, organize and work free of corporate pressure. So the fight is beginning to take shape, and on May 28, everyone is invited to the Anti-Eviction Block Party at the Afrikatown Garden.

Funktown, which is near Lake Merritt, is rapidly being gentrified. You can still find “Funktown” scribbled on sidewalks here and there when the concrete was fresh. But economic cleansing has taken its toll on the hood. It’s just not the same any more. As the renters of Oakland are being terrorized by skyrocketing rents and greedy landlords evicting them by the thousands, city officials have mostly turned a blind eye to the economic cleansing taking place on their watch.

I was introduced to Augusta Lee Collins at Dave Petrelli’s Twinspace in San Francisco where thespian Anita Woodley performed her “Mama Juggs” one woman play about 5 years ago. Since Anita Woodley worked closest with him, I thought it would be fitting to get her to talk about her colleague, musical comrade and friend, who transitioned after being hit by a car in Oakland. Here is Anita Woodley in her own words.

Eritrean born and Oakland raised visual artist Mahader Tesfai has been making a considerable amount of noise around the Town lately, first with his 80 piece installation at the Omi Gallery in downtown Oakland, then by becoming the artistic director of the Matatu Festival of Stories, which is happening next week. Mahader sat down wit’ me exclusively to talk about Black African art in the Tech Era coming out of Oakland.

Under the block-long "Welcome 2 AfrikaTown" mural painted last year on the Qilombo community center, 2313 San Pablo at West Grant, a dozen garden beds are now bursting with food and people are always there. On March 26, a bulldozer and cops arrived to destroy the garden, but supporters blocked them. On April 3, AfrikaTown won a reprieve to negotiate purchase of the land.

A Black West Oakland family is set to be forcefully thrown out of their home in days by NationStar Bank. Annette Miller and her family have lived in their home for the last 60 years and are among the oldest Black homeowners in a quickly gentrifying West Oakland. “They’ve foreclosed on a lot of people around here.” Neighbors have pledged to fight back to keep this home in the hands of the Miller family.

Khayrishi Wiginton, a youth leadership coordinator at McClymonds High School in West Oakland, is fundraising and organizing a trip to South Africa with her students. Many of us do not know the power that travelling outside of the country has on fertile minds. I hope that Block Report Radio listeners and SF Bay View readers will assist these inner-city students and adults in completing their quest. Here is Khayrishi in her own words.