Community
To the untrained eye, roller derby seems like pure pandemonium — players falling over like bowling pins, knocking into each other left and right. But hours of weekly training have taught them how to dodge, shove, turn and jump on four wheels to control the chaos and rack up points. For members of the Bay Area Derby league, it’s more than just a sport. Players are there to destress, build relationships with each other, uplift their communities, and work collectively…
A landmark of the Prescot neighborhood, Oakland’s 16th Street Station is hard to miss. Just off Interstate 880, the 40-feet-tall Beaux Arts style building towers above surrounding homes and squat industrial buildings. The station is fenced off, with graffiti covering the terracotta cladding below the building’s three signature grand arched windows. Built in 1912, the former transportation hub was once the largest Southern Pacific Railroad station in Northern California. It served as a meeting place during the Civil Rights Movement…
VIDEO: Giving kids and communities hope — Youth Alive works to stop the cycle of violence in Oakland
For more than 30 years, an Oakland nonprofit has been working in neighborhoods to interrupt the cycle of violence that often leads to retaliation and incarceration. This story follows the work of Eric Adams, Keith Wesley and Doral Myles, violence interrupters with Youth Alive who at one time were caught up in that cycle and are now trained and committed to helping communities break it. Their efforts are spent on disrupting violence, along with fostering hope and healing, and bringing…
Cava Menzies could feel the warm sun pouring into her bedroom as she sat in silence, eyes closed, legs crossed, engaged in meditation. Menzies, a founding faculty member and music teacher at the Oakland School for the Arts, often draws creative inspiration during morning meditation in her downtown Oakland apartment. But this meditation session in February 2022 brought a revelation. After her practice, Menzies wrote CO-LLAB Choir on her whiteboard, her intuition telling her to create an adult ensemble group. …
On the side of a nondescript Temescal building, a tableau is coming alive in a vibrant array of blues, oranges and reds. An artist on a ladder, spray paint in hand, adds the final touches, catching the eye of a passerby, who yells, “It looks great,” as he drives by. Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith smiles and waves, then returns to her work. “Murals are cool because you’re out here connecting with other human beings,” the artist said. “Because you’re outside all day, I’m…
When Chien Nguyen closed his boba shop in East Oakland in 2023, he turned his focus to another venture: revitalizing a nearby park and its community center. Over the past eight years, Nguyen said he has watched the deterioration of Clinton Park, where he used to bring his daughter, from a once safe space into a public safety hazard. From the expansion of homeless encampments, to open crime and drug use, Nguyen said families and kids have stopped going to…
The East Bay Regional Park District began during the height of the Great Depression with a ballot measure asking voters to institute a property tax for the purpose of creating a park system. Despite the hard economic times, voters overwhelmingly agreed to tax themselves so they could have more parks. Ninety years later, about 25 million people a year enjoy what has become the largest park district of its kind in the nation, a network essential to the active, outdoor…
Over 70 people gathered outside the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center near Lake Merritt Wednesday to celebrate the first anniversary of the creation of the Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District — bringing a moment of joy to many who felt discouraged by last week’s election of Donald Trump as president. Last November, the city declared an official LGBTQ+ Cultural District in the heart of Oakland, between Grand Avenue and El Embarcadero to the south, Lakeshore Avenue to the east, and Boulevard Way…
In a nook between the parish offices and the sanctuary, with its pearly white walls and stained glass windows, a line of worshippers has come to St. Elizabeth church in Fruitvale looking for answers to the unexpected and unexplainable. A woman, her son by her side, is weeping, hyperventilating, her head tilted down as she stands before the still figure of La Virgen de Guadalupe, or the Virgin Mary. Behind her, another woman waits patiently for her turn to feel…