7000 Coliseum Way: A photo essay

Tony, from Hayward, showed up early for the A's game and brought a boblehead doll of Mitch Richmond, in hopes of getting Richmond to sign it after he spoke during the Warriors' pregame show.

There’s a parking lot in East Oakland. You know the one. It’s nestled between the Amtrak Train tracks to the east and Highway 880 to the west, and bordered by a murky moat-like creek called Damon Slough…and all three of the city’s major sports teams play in either the O.co Coliseum on one side, or…

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Civil rights complaint resolved at Skyline High School

In early March, Skyline High School and the Oakland Unified School District resolved a complaint filed by the high school’s Black Student Union nearly a year ago. The resolution could change how students file complaints, allow random audits of students’ class schedules, offer training for teachers on how to deal with complaints of racial discrimination,…

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Fans stream in for Opening Day baseball in Oakland

Oakland North tagged along as people of all ages, and even a dog or two made their way to O. Co Coliseum to watch the home team square off against the Seattle Mariners. We talked to a guy who has seen too many players come and go every year, a person who has seen 40 opening day games in Oakland and a dog owner who thinks the A’s are going all the way!

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Women and hip-hop: A discussion in downtown Oakland

Betti Ono art.

On Friday, the Betti Ono art gallery in downtown Oakland hosted a panel discussion about women and Hip-Hop. The “My Art, My Culture: Women, media, and Hip-Hop” three-part discussion was the product of the combined efforts of a number of Bay Area arts organizations including Beats, Rhymes, and Life, which uses Hip-Hop to empower young people, and the Daughters of Dilla Project, which offers media arts programs for girls.

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Children celebrate Black History Month at Ile Omode Elementary

Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and a number of famous African Americans ancestors made an appearance at an elementary school in East Oakland on the final day of Black History Month. Ancestor Day 2013 at Ile Omode, a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school in East Oakland, consisted of four and five year-old students dressing up as…

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Reggie Bailey’s Barbershop

Bailey's barbershop

“My last trip in the penitentiary, I had to make a decision on what I wanted to do with my life,” said Reggie Bailey, sitting in the swiveling barber chair in his small shop in the heart of downtown Oakland. “I just decided to go to barber college.”

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One Oakland teacher’s lesson on discipline

Martel Price listens to students from his leadership class.

Price has a special vantage point on the Resolution Plan, given the fact that he was once a disobedient student, and now sometimes works with students with behavioral issues. He’s a little ambivalent, he said—because he understands how tough classroom teaching can really be.
On the one hand, he said, monitoring their own disciplinary actions more closely will push teachers to find resolutions to kids’ problematic classroom behaviors, without kicking them out so readily. “It will cause teachers to deal with students,” Price said.
On the other hand, it will leave some students with the opportunity to “steal the education” from their classmates, Price said, referring to students who are disruptive to the point that it disturbs the class and ruins the lesson.

Price grew up in East Oakland, graduated from Montera Middle School and Skyline High – and was a self-admitted troublemaker throughout his teens.

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Fours Years Later: African Americans in Oakland react to President Obama’s reelection

As President Obama was elected for a second time, the band played and the building came alive.

Four years ago, people danced in the streets in front of Everett and Jones BBQ Restaurant in Jack London Square. They embraced loved ones and high-fived total strangers. The news cameras rolled, and non-reporters became journalists as they documented history via grainy pictures from their camera phones. The first African American president in the history…

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African American students honored for perfect scores

OUSD students honored

For the third consecutive year, the Oakland Unified School District’s Department of African American Male Achievement honored students who earned perfect scores on their STAR exams, but this year’s ceremony honored both young men and women. To celebrate these students’ achievements, a boisterous crowd of parents, educators and other students attended an evening event at Frick Middle School in East Oakland on October 11.

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