Oakland North TV

Ebola reaction among African community in the East Bay

Nigerian Independence Day is Oct. 1, but for U.C. Berkeley Nigerians the party took place a few days later, at a hall near campus. It was a party crowded with people and colors from Nigeria and the rest of the African continent. You saw young Nigerian women in their bubas, the Nigerian blouses; their iros, wrap skirts; which in Yoruba usually worn with gele, the head wrap.  People sang the national anthem.  The smells of the broiled beefsteaks, platters of…

Historic Lady Washington tall ship sails into Oakland’s Jack London Square

The 1700s sailed into port at Oakland’s Jack London Square aboard the brig Lady Washington for a nine-day stay this month. With a crew of 13 at her helm, the 112-foot wooden ship, a replica of its namesake from the American Revolutionary War, has been a tour and education site while docked in Oakland. Capt. Ken Lazarus considers the ship, a 1989 replica of the original Lady Washington Boston trading vessel from the 1780s, the quintessential teaching tool. The captain…

Buddha of Oakland

When Dan Stevenson placed a stone Buddha across the street from his house in Oakland’s Eastlake neighborhood, it was out of desperation. “The corner was constantly being filled up with mattress and couches and junk and there was some drug usage, a lot of graffiti, people just standing around doing nothing—just depressing,” said Stevenson.  Stevenson and his wife, Lu, say they are not religious at all, but believe in the power of positive and negative energy, and so decided to…