The party for self-defense: Black-Asian solidarity through martial arts at the Life is Living Festival
on October 12, 2026
Two masked kendokas faced off with long bamboo sticks, their feet planted firmly. Each strike was accompanied by a yell that reverberated across Lil Bobby Hutton Park, continuing Oakland’s more than 50-year legacy of martial arts.
This live demonstration took place at the “Life is Living” Festival” in West Oakland Saturday. The free annual event was founded by Oakland-rooted creatives in 2008. This year’s “Party for Self-Defense,” theme came from the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which was the original name for the Black Panther Party.
“They carried arms because they were trying to defend themselves,” said Hodari Davis, an educator who co-founded Life is Living. “They built health clinics because they were trying to defend themselves against disease. They built a free breakfast program to defend against hunger. They had schools and book mobiles to defend against illiteracy.”
Martial arts is also one of the Black Panthers’ defense tactics.
Drawing on the Panthers’ strategies, the event featured organizations and activities: dancing, drumming, spoken word, graffiti battles and free breakfast.
A panel discussion facilitated by author a Jeff Chang drew around 75 people and centered on the history of martial arts in Oakland and its role in the Black Panthers, as well as threats from police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement facing some Oakland communities.
Shannon Lee, educator, author, and daughter of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, was among the two panelists. She talked about her father’s involvement in the Oakland martial arts scene.
In 1964, at age 23, Bruce Lee opened a martial arts studio in the city. “Under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family,” Shannon Lee quoted him as saying, stressing her father’s openness to teaching martial arts to everyone.
Panelist Steve McCutchen, an advanced Taekwondo practitioner, was a member of BPP in the 1970s and taught martial arts to the Panthers and the public. McCutchen said Bruce Lee’s teaching about creating common ground against oppression resonated with diverse groups, including Black, Asian and poor communities.
That message continues to resonate.
“Living in these times, where we are being attacked on all sides, we have to have some kind of practice we can turn to that helps us feel our inner power,” said Stephanie Parker, who was among the martial artists participating in the demonstrations.
This year, a new offering was added to the festival: martial arts demos, featuring: kendo, fencing, karate, aikido, jujutsu, tai chi, qigong, boxing, and Visayan style corda kadena largo mano eskrima — a Philippine martial art founded in Oakland in the 1970s.
“In general, the population of Oakland doesn’t necessarily know about the heritage or know about all of the different varieties of arts that you can study in our city,” Davis said.
Jay Jasper Pugao, who joined others in a Visayan style corda kadena demonstration, said Oakland’s marginalized communities are interested in learning martial arts, and he hopes to create space for them to do that.
“They’re like, I want to learn how to defend my family, or I want to connect with my roots, or this martial art keeps me healthy,” Pugao said. “Or, I’m a person of color and a lot of people doing martial arts are people in law enforcement, and I don’t feel comfortable in those settings. Or, I’m a woman, gay, or queer, and in some spaces, it’s super machismo. I noticed it was dominated by that culture.”
The festival emphasized martial arts as an inclusive practice. It also highlighted the work of the volunteer organizations that worked to make the event a success, including: People’s Kitchen Collective, Bay Area Organization of Black Owned Businesses, and The Living Word Project.
“The currency of Life is Living,” Davis said, “is definitely community.”
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