Community
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…
The City of Oakland approved a new experimental short-term housing solution, called The Village. After a year of negotiations, they’ve been granted land by the city, and are building houses for the homeless.
Several Oakland organizations are uniting to bring economic growth to the city by opening a community advocacy and training center in a renovated building on International Boulevard, in the center of the Fruitvale community. Restore Oakland will provide community members with job preparation programs and offer services like a tenants’ rights clinic and a restaurant that will also be a work training site.
On Saturday morning, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf visited the Loong Kong Tien Yee Association, a Chinese family association based in Chinatown. “Happy new year, good to see you all!” the mayor said to the members of the association. “Welcome, welcome!” the members responded, shaking hands with her one by one. It was her first stop that day, in her plan to visit six Chinese associations to pay respect to the community, recognize their contributions to Oakland, and celebrate the Chinese…
The children’s hip hop group attended the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in New York, where they were nominated for Best Children’s Album.
On Tuesday evening, about 120 people gathered at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center to attend a “neighborhood design session” held by the city. The session was a public meeting to discuss challenges in Oakland’s Chinatown and to generate ideas for the city’s “Downtown Oakland Specific Plan,” which will lay out a long-term vision for the area. “There are three big ideas that we are working with as part of this plan,” said Gregory Hodge, a social change entrepreneur at Khepera…
Lina Park was recently named the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation of San Francisco. She discusses her new role, the community’s biggest hidden issues and cultural taboos.