Education
On Thursday night, Oakland community members met at the Think College Now campus to discuss the “Blueprint for Quality Schools,” the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD)’s plan to refurbish old school buildings and use school resources more effectively. The “community dialogue” was one of four planned for this week, and attracted about 30 people.
During an Oakland school board meeting that lasted until a little after 11 p.m. Wednesday night, a new plan for school facilities and a proposal for an additional charter school were major topics of discussion.
As Lily Woo, age 23, got off of her 12-hour flight from Korea, she felt relief to be back home in the Bay Area. Even though this was Woo’s first time visiting the birthplace she had left at age 3, she felt like she was returning from a foreign country. As she approached U.S. Customs, she noticed that the arriving group was being escorted to two different lines: U.S citizens and non-citizens/visitors. Although Woo was returning to the only country…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several Bay Area-based organizations have planted a vegetation barrier to try to reduce air pollution at an East Oakland elementary school.
Teachers and administrations within the Oakland Unified School District rally behind their undocumented students.
In November, Californians passed Proposition 57 by a 64.5 percent vote. Formally known as the California Parole for Non-Violent Criminals and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements Initiative, and strongly endorsed by Governor Jerry Brown, Oakland’s former mayor, the new law attempts to ease prison overcrowding by increasing parole opportunities for inmates and changing how juvenile offenders are charged. Now local and state agencies are grappling with the complexities of putting Proposition 57 into effect and debating the effects it will have…
On a warm Saturday morning, people began to slowly stroll into the Memorial Tabernacle in Oakland’s Bushrod neighborhood. They were gathered not for a morning service, but for a special kind of lawn party. Trail mix, cookies, apples, and fresh-cut pieces of banana were laid out on colorful bowls on a table, but nothing smelled more fresh than the two 4-foot piles of compost and wood mulch laid out on the road in front of the church.
StopWaste, a public agency dedicated to reducing waste in Alameda County, hosted the lawn party to revitalize the Memorial Tabernacle’s community garden, using this hands-on project to educate volunteers on how to convert a water-thirsty lawn into a fruitful garden.
Marco Alberto had no desire to join an activist group. Still, resistance was in his DNA.
Long before the 2016 election, there was a civil rights culture that was created by Americans of color. Many of today’s political demonstrations are influenced by historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, all who fought in the long battle against racism. Even protests like the recent Women’s March, some would argue, derived from previous demonstrations of people of color. In 1997, in Philadelphia, for example, activist Phile Chionesu formed the Million Woman March,…