Politics
Thousands of East Bay residents, gay and straight, celebrated last year’s gay rights triumphs on Sunday at Oakland’s second annual Gay Pride Festival. A landmark year in gay rights, 2011 saw the elimination of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that banned openly gay personnel from serving in the military.
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.
To chants of “Si se puede!” eight young people stood smiling on stage at the New Parish club in downtown Oakland on Thursday night. They were there to tell the stories of the farmers and community members they had met while on a road trip across California to promote farm bill reform and to encourage young people to support new farm-related legislation.
From August 22 to September 2, 15 photos by David Bacon from the Alameda County Food Bank’s 2010 hunger study are being displayed at Oakland City Hall.
About two dozen protesters jammed the entrance of the Oakland Unified School District’s office building near Lake Merritt on Wednesday afternoon, demanding the dismissal of recently-appointed OUSD interim police chief Barhin Bhatt, who was involved in the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Raheim Brown earlier this year. Bhatt was appointed to head the district’s small police force earlier this month after the previous chief stepped down.
Non-native English speakers are learning the language and acquiring job skills at The English Center in Jack London Square.
This weekend, organizers of the second national conference of BUTCH Voices, a grassroots organizations dedicated to all self-indentified “Masculine of Center” people, had over 450 attendees at the Oakland City Center Marriott.
More than 1,200 people became citizens at a naturalization ceremony at the Paramount Theatre on Wednesday.
The Oakland town hall meeting called “Speak Out for Good Jobs Now” attracted more than 600 people to the Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland on Tuesday evening. It was the last stop on a group of Democratic legislators’ national tour to gather public opinions about job creation issues.