Community
The sidewalk in front of the Easter Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond was all but empty on Monday at 11 am. A cyclist slowly meandered by on Cutting Boulevard, the clinking of his bike chain breaking up the white noise created by a constant stream of passing cars. The doors of the church were locked, the interior dimly lit by sunlight sneaking through the high windows in the nave. In a few hours, Easter Hill would come to…
DeFremery Park is an island. A two-story light blue Victorian sits alone in a massive yard, surrounded by fields of vibrant green grass. It’s quiet in the park on most days, the building’s stoic presence adding a layer of calm to the surrounding West Oakland neighborhood. The house sits next to a tennis court, a skate park, a swing set, basketball courts, a baseball diamond, and an indoor swimming pool—all of which go consistently underused on Oakland’s many sunny days….
In the corner of Vicente Way and Claremont in Oakland lies what is a hidden treasure to many, but to others, a jewel in plain sight: Alem’s Coffee, which serves Eritrean food and is a gathering spot for the East African community. As you enter the strategically-placed corner coffee shop, the scent of coffee hits you in the face, then the scent of different spices punches you in the stomach. The sun shines brightly into the seating area through the…
The Nevin Community Center is in Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood, a few yards from Kaiser Hospital. The center’s playground is fenced off from a large patch of grass that stretches from the center to the sidewalk on the 800 block of Macdonald Avenue. Across the grass, a couple of older men are hanging out, sipping beers at a picnic table. A woman with a stroller walks by and asks them for a cigarette. Standard park sounds—like the laughter of toddlers—mix…
The corner where this incident occurred is currently a construction zone
It is a very precise place. No plastic bags, no empty bottles, not even in the corners or under the bench. The red plastic edging seems to fence the monument in, to protect it from stranger things. The four bronzes inside are placed symmetrically on two sites framed by a gallery of little busts, bronzed and brushed. Global humanitarians next to local champions: Marcus Foster, Carmen Flores, Oleta Abrams, Fred Korematsu, Rosa Parks, Oskar Schindler, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela….
Zella’s Soul Food Kitchen was opened in October 2014, by Dionne Knox. Zella’s can be found in the right corner of the Mandela Food Cooperative, a worker-owned grocery store opened since 2009.
On the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 39th Street in Oakland lies a quaint, red brick bookstore decorated with murals of prominent black figures and tattooed with bold lettering. I spotted Malcolm X on one side of the building and on the other, the outline of Africa accompanied by the virtues “dignity,” “honor,” “respect,” “justice” and “compassion.” Inside Marcus Books, a wealth of stories echo the same themes—from Maya Angelou’s complete poetry book to James Baldwin’s I…
Past a forest of white masts, a harbor bell rings in the distance. But the days of riveters and warships, smoky jazz clubs and worker’s unions, are long gone. Now, yachts and skiffs and sailboats bob up and down, tightly packed together, under a clear blue sky. This used to be one of the spots where tens of thousands of African Americans and immigrants came to make their wages during the second world war, turning generations of oppression and hardship…