People

Cephus Johnson and the men of Black Lives Matter

Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson got the call in the afternoon. “You better get your butt down here,” Patrisse Cullors told him. She was standing on a corner of Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza with five activists from London, each of whom had lost a family member to police violence. They were jetlagged and wearing matching T-shirts. “You’re supposed to be here,” Cullors said. A self-possessed woman with short, dreaded hair, Cullors is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Johnson is the…

Hundreds rally for Bernie Sanders in Oakland as Super Tuesday looms

As voters went to the polls in South Carolina, and with Super Tuesday looming on March 1, about 300 people rallied for Bernie Sanders in downtown Oakland on Saturday. Local group SambaFunk provided a pulsating drum soundtrack as Sanders supporters, many with children, rallied at Frank Ogawa Plaza before marching to a CitiBank branch to call attention to Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street donations. Held at the same location as the Occupy Oakland protests of 2011, Saturday’s rally also focused on…

Introducing the Tales of Two Cities Podcast, radio stories from Richmond and Oakland

Dear Readers/Listeners, The combined staff of Oakland North and Richmond Confidential is excited to announce a new bi-weekly podcast featuring radio stories from Richmond and Oakland, as well as interviews with our reporters, community leaders and other news-worthy characters. Every two weeks until June, we will bring you radio stories focused on a theme or issue affecting these two cities. You will also hear from our reporters to get a behind the scenes look at our news room. Every other Thursday, check our sites for new…

Oakland residents feast on traditional Chinese New Year’s dishes

Being Chinese, one does not simply eat. Eating is a favorite cultural pastime, and has a process to it that is treated with such reverence that the Chinese say, “Dining comes before the Emperor does.” This respect for delectables escalates with the arrival of the Lunar New Year, which begins with the second new moon after the winter solstice. The holidays—much like a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas when families reunite—start when the moon is but a sliver in the…

Local boutique owner designs clothing with sustainable materials

Field Day and Friends is a local boutique that is part workshop, part brick and mortar store. Trinity Cross, owner and designer, creates her own patterns for women’s clothing using reused and sustainable fabrics. Cross searches for a variety of different fabrics, which means many of her designs are one-of-a kind.

LGBT glossary bridges linguistic gap across cultures

Asian LGBTQ people often do not know certain words regarding sex and sexuality in their native language—or their language may not even have a certain word—which can affect the way they communicate with their doctor. It is also a challenge for medical providers, who need to find the most culturally appropriate terms to use for an individual patient.

Nia Imara sheds light on Oakland through art

Born in East Oakland and raised in the Bay Area, Imara is an astronomer and a researcher at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, holding the prestigious title of a Harvard-MIT Future Faculty Leader Postdoctoral Fellow. Not only was she was the first African American woman to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics from UC Berkeley, but she is also a self-taught painter.