Community
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne L. Armstrong has established a special division to reduce violent crime.
Merchants respond to violence in Oakland’s Chinatown. Volunteers organize to offer protection.
At Oakland’s inner harbor near the water’s edge stands the bronze statue of Jack London—a famed 20th Century author, labor union advocate and racist who promoted eugenics and white supremacy. Communities of color make up 75% of the population in Oakland. This summer, Oakland residents petitioned to remove a monument dedicated to London and to protest the name of the popular commercial square and district named in his honor. Historically, there’s a well-established culture of renaming spaces and places in…
Housing advocates in Oakland are warning that the current tenant protections enacted and expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic contain loopholes that leave renters vulnerable to evictions and even lawsuits. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors issued a temporary eviction ban to protect residents from being evicted in March. It covered renters, homeowners and those living in mobile home parks throughout the county. A few days later, California governor Gavin Newsom announced a temporary statewide eviction ban. However, exceptions in the…
After over four decades of disenfranchisement, Californians on parole now have the right to vote. Because the U.S. invests heavily in mass incarceration, the number of people who have lost their right to vote because of their parole status has risen from 1.7 million Americans in 1976 to 6.1 million in 2016. This act would start to reverse those numbers. In Alameda County, an overwhelming majority of residents voted to make this possible. 74% of the population voted to restore…
Nearly 64% of Californians voted “No” on Proposition 23, a measure that would have expanded regulation for dialysis clinics in the state. Though official ballot results are not certified by the Secretary of State’s office until December 11, 2020, tallied ballots show over 10 million people voted to reject the measure. Proposition 23 would have required chronic dialysis clinics to have an on-site physician, report data on dialysis-related infections to the state and get consent from the California Department of…
California voters have decided not to restore affirmative action in schools. Proposition 16, which failed by a margin of 12 percentage points, would have reversed a 1996 ban on considering race, gender or ethnicity in public education systems and public contracting. State lawmakers—motivated by high-profile racial injustices, such as the police killing of George Floyd—voted to put this proposition on the November ballot. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) had already begun discussions on how they would take advantage of…
At a boarded up Oakland City Hall, 20-year-old Mara Coleman sits with paint, brushes, markers and white poster board. With a steady hand and careful strokes, Coleman concentrates as she paints the name Breonna Taylor in red paint. This is the location where Coleman met with fellow youth organizers from Abolitionist Movement SF to paint protest signs and memorialize Black victims of police violence–just days after a Kentucky grand jury decided not to prosecute Louisville Metro Police officers for killing…
Business owners in Oakland’s Chinatown find a silver lining in a year filled with numerous obstacles.