Community
As Imam Zaid Shakir walked into Oakland’s Lighthouse Mosque for Friday prayers, several of his congregation leapt to their feet and embraced him, eager to hear his take on a YouTube video, and the violent reaction to it, that have strained relations between many in the Muslim world and the United States.
The small, high-ceilinged gallery was barely big enough for the turnout Friday night. The modest rows of folding chairs easily filled, and then people found space on the paint-smudged concrete floor wherever they could. Some crouched on the stairs, others stood in the back, but everybody listened, because this was a presentation about love.
Chants rang out along East 15th Street Friday evening as residents waved signs declaring “No crime, no robbery, no prostitution!” and “We need safe neighborhoods!”
Community members, law enforcement officials and politicians alike reached across church aisles Thursday night to hold hands, literally, and pledge commitment to ending gun violence in Oakland.
A parade of ING executives, students and school staff marched into Thi Bui’s Oakland International High School classroom on Wednesday morning to make a surprise announcement.
Last week Dana Harvey, the executive director of Mandela Marketplace, a West Oakland-based nonprofit that helps residents create businesses that sell produce grown by local farmers, received a White House award for her efforts to make healthy foods accessible in Oakland.
The debate over Richard Aoki’s status as an FBI informant came home to the former Black Panther’s neighborhood Tuesday night in the form of a crowded basement book discussion.
Damon Slough, a chunk of preserved parkland in Oakland that stretches for more than eight acres along the Martin Luther King Jr. shoreline, was named one of the Bay Area’s top five most littered waterways in 2012, environmental groups said today.
A white placard completely covers Diesel Bookstore’s neon sign: “Brokeland Records.” On each of the bookstore’s two large glass windows lie canvases displaying the same words in thick yellow and white lettering.