Culture
On the second floor of the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder’s office in downtown Oakland is the wedding room. It’s a little bit like a chapel, except there are no crosses or candles. More than 50 couples walk through its doors every week prepared to say, “I do.”
On Saturday, residents gathered at the African American Museum and Library (AAMLO) in downtown Oakland to hear the story of a former slave who spied on the Confederate government during the Civil War. Award-winning author Lois Leveen read from her book The Secrets of Mary Bowser, a novel that combines historical information about Bowser while weaving those facts into a work of historical fiction about the life of a spy in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the time when “freedom” was new concept for blacks in America.
Over 500 people showed up for songs, dances, and storytelling during the Ohlone Basket Welcoming Celebration held in the gardens of the Oakland Museum of California on Saturday. The museum offered free admission all day for the event honoring Ohlone artist and scholar Linda Yamane for her crafting a ceremonial Ohlone basket, the first of its kind to be made in almost 250 years.
In a group show at the Compound Gallery & Studios titled “The Artist as Storyteller,” artist and curator Alison O.K. Frost has assembled a collection of works that tell viewers stories, leaving them to interpret what the artists mean to say. Multi-paneled pieces marry words and images in a way that is simultaneously familiar and abstract.
Oakland has a long and fascinating history. Come along with Oakland North as we explore some of the city’s most interesting old stories in text and photos.
The sound of jazz—a melody, harmony, rhythm, or timbre—hadn’t filled the lobby of the California Hotel, just off San Pablo Avenue, for more than a decade. And as over a hundred people filled into the hotel on Wednesday—Billy Strayhorn numbers setting the mood—for a groundbreaking marking the city’s decision to revitalize the historic hotel, passersby, many of them with iPods, didn’t know the hotel was a venue for the most preeminent figures on their playlists: James Brown, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin and Big Mama Thornton.
This Saturday, dozens of volunteering opportunities will be available during the second annual “Throw Down for the Town,” a service festival that gives Oakland residents several options to transform their neighborhoods.
It’s about dedication, focus, bravery, heart and a willingness to leave it all on the stage for the audience to absorb and learn from—that is what the young poets who participated in the 15th Annual Brave New Voices Grand Slam Finals said about the competition that took place on Saturday night at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
California was once home to over 300 Native American dialects and as many as 90 languages. Today, only about half of those languages are still with us and many are working to revive them.