Posts Tagged ‘black history month’
Sooooo sweet: Chocolate Festival promotes Black artists, entrepreneurs and businesses
In celebration of Black History Month, the Black Cultural Zone put a spotlight on love and local businesses, bringing them together in the Sooooo Chocolate Festival on Sunday at Uptown Station. “Promoting local artists is the antidote to gentrification and displacement,” said Carylon Johnson, Black Cultural Zone CEO. “Festivals like these remind people that who…
Read MoreTa-Nehisi Coates speaks at ‘Black Panther’ screening in Oakland
On Tuesday, author Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke at a screening of Marvel’s Black Panther in front of 250 high school students at Oakland’s Grand Lake. The action film, which stars a nearly all-black black cast and imagines an Afrofuturist world untouched by white supremacy and colonialism, had a record-breaking opening weekend.
Read MoreThe places that made Black history, in Oakland and Richmond
To commemorate Black History Month, the news teams from Oakland North and our sibling site, Richmond Confidential, spent a morning observing some of the spaces in our two cities that have been important to the East Bay’s black community—past and present.
Read MoreOriginal Site of Merritt College in Oakland
The BART train whirrs by, leaving MacArthur station as cars exit the freeway. Nobody notices the bit of history below. Under the train tracks at the speedway intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 58th Street in North Oakland is a salmon-colored building spanning the length of five blocks. It is the original site…
Read MoreEaster Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond
The sidewalk in front of the Easter Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond was all but empty on Monday at 11 am. A cyclist slowly meandered by on Cutting Boulevard, the clinking of his bike chain breaking up the white noise created by a constant stream of passing cars. The doors of the church were…
Read MoreDeFremery Park in Oakland
DeFremery Park is an island. A two-story light blue Victorian sits alone in a massive yard, surrounded by fields of vibrant green grass. It’s quiet in the park on most days, the building’s stoic presence adding a layer of calm to the surrounding West Oakland neighborhood. The house sits next to a tennis court, a…
Read MoreRemember Them monument in Oakland
It is a very precise place. No plastic bags, no empty bottles, not even in the corners or under the bench. The red plastic edging seems to fence the monument in, to protect it from stranger things. The four bronzes inside are placed symmetrically on two sites framed by a gallery of little busts, bronzed…
Read MoreOakland non-profit promotes literacy through diversity and representation
Denmark Gatewood had a captive audience. On Saturday, he sat on a small stage reading children’s books filled with stories about Black children, written by Black authors to a group of mostly Black children and parents. Despite the gathering at the African American Museum and Library (AAMLO) for the Barbers, Books & Bridges’ (BBB) event,…
Read MoreSecret ancestors, precious photos, and civil rights at the African American Museum
It’s Saturday afternoon at the African American Museum in Oakland, and archivist Sean Heyliger is showing a small group how best to preserve and care for old photos as part of an open house for Black History Month.
Read MoreEastmont Library offers West African drumming, engagement to kids
“One, two, three” says Ben Ofori to a neat pile of fifth graders sitting cross-legged in front of him at the Eastmont Library. They squirm a little, but mostly stare in wide-eyed wonder at the man in brightly colored clothes.
Read MoreThis weekend in Oakland
Community events and activities for the weekend of February 18-21. Got an event we didn’t know about? Please add it in the comments!
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