Culture
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.
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…
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.
Brazilian music icon Gilberto Gil, singer and guitarist and former Minister of Culture of Brazil talks to Oakland North Radio about his upcoming show at the Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland Thursday Night.
For the third consecutive year, the Oakland Unified School District’s Department of African American Male Achievement honored students who earned perfect scores on their STAR exams, but this year’s ceremony honored both young men and women. To celebrate these students’ achievements, a boisterous crowd of parents, educators and other students attended an evening event at Frick Middle School in East Oakland on October 11.
Community events and activities for the weekend of October 19-21, 2012. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!
Community events and activities for the weekend of October 12-14, 2012. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!
In 2009, Tomás Alvarez III sat at his desk as a group of nine teenagers filed into his classroom at Oakland High School. This was the fifth year of his Beats, Rhymes and Life program, which uses hip-hop music as a form of therapy for at-risk teenagers. Alvarez began the class in the usual fashion, playing instrumental beats on a boom box. As the class gathered in a circle and began to freestyle, Alvarez recalls, he recognized something particularly special…