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Fairy lights and Persian rugs guided Muslims up an elegant, high-ceilinged stairway and into a special religious service held Friday to mark the end of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that is undertaken by some 1.8 million Muslims every year. Although none of those in Oakland’s Iranian community who attended a service at the Islamic Cultural Center for Northern California had completed the Hajj this year, they came out to celebrate Eid ul-Ahda, the end of the annual Muslim…
The Día de Los Muertos celebration in the Fruitvale Village drew people from across the East Bay on Sunday. Azteca dance, Mariachi and Andean music filled the air as thousands of people observed a myriad of altars, which were represented everyone from Oakland homicides in 2011, to grandparents.
The only City Council candidate declaring his party affiliation at every voter forum, one-time mayoral hopeful Don Macleay says he would bring his Green Party principles to city government. One of a series profiling the seven candidates for the District 1 seat.
Halloween is always a time for creepy good fun in Oakland, so this year, we’ve dragged some of our favorite spooky stories up from the vault a little early to help you get into the … er, spirit. Check out these stories of hauntings, Halloween-themed scraper bikes, a bar that really knows how to decorate and much much more…
Craig Brandt, running a low-key but determined campaign for the city council seat, has pledged to take no donations from unions or businesses involved with the city of Oakland. One of a series profiling all seven candidates for the District 1 seat.
When Richard Raya talks about crime and poverty, in the political newcomer’s campaign for the Oakland City Council he often tells his own story, and that of the role model who helped turn his life around–his mother. Second in a series of profiles of the seven candidates campaigning for North Oakland’s District 1 seat.
Apart from patches of dusty, multicolored chalk art on the sidewalks—a remnant of Chalkupy—little evidence of last night’s march and gathering commemorating the first police raid on an Occupy Oakland encampment remained Friday morning. Despite declarations that the group would hold an all-night vigil, and rumors that they might attempt to set up a new encampment, the only people at Frank Ogawa Plaza this morning were security guards, commuters and City of Oakland maintenance workers.
On the night of the one-year anniversary of the police raid on the first Occupy Oakland encampment, a crowd of Occupy Oakland protesters zig-zagged on a march through the downtown before returning to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where they declared that they planned to hold an all-night vigil. The six-hour protest Thursday night, which drew no more than 300 protesters, was noticeably smaller than Occupy protests last year, which drew thousands. Throughout the night, as the march moved from the plaza…
A year ago today, in a dawn raid, Oakland police cleared the downtown encampment that was drawing national attention as the center of Occupy Oakland. This story reconstructs that raid and the remarkable, controversial sequence of public disruptions that held the city’s attention for many weeks.