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Olympian Track and Field Clinic... Page 8
Fleetwood E. Irving ‘A Living Legend’... Page 9
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Protecting the Planet... Page 3
Hon. Gwen Moore Legislative Reception... Page 8
Oakland Post “Where there is no vision, the people perish...” Proverbs 29:18
60th Year, No. 17
Weekly Edition. Edition. April 26 - May 2, 2023
postnewsgroup.com
Hundreds Rally at Court House to Support DA Pamela Price and End Mass Incarceration By Ken Epstein
Several hundred people attended a rally last Sunday on the steps of the Alameda County Court House by Lake Merritt and live on social media to rally in support of newly elected Alameda County District Attorney Price, who already faces blistering establishment attacks for carrying out her campaign pledge to end mass incarceration and to meet the desperate needs of both crime victims and victims of the criminal justice system. District Attorney Price shared her vision and determination to fulfill the goals of the historic civil rights movement, to work with the community to end violence, support victims of crime and end the institutionalized injustice that plagues criminal justice in Alameda County and this country, “I stand before you as the first non-appointed, non-anointed district attorney of Alameda County in over 100 years,” said Price, who began her remarks by underscoring her determination by singing one of the anthems of the Civil Rights Movement the 1950s and 1960s, “I Ain’t Going to Let Nobody Turn Me Around.” Among the speakers were diverse Alameda County residents and leaders who support Price, including Berkeley resident Paola Laverde, a member of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, District 15. “Like the 228,721 people who voted for her in November, I believe she is the right person to be Alameda County’s top prosecutor,” said Laverde, who has worked as a translator for the courts. “I support Pamela Price because she’s a Black woman who had the audacity … to challenge and stand up against the status quo in Alameda County, where the district attorney has been handpicked by politicians and not by the people (for decades).
“For over 30 years she has fought for the victims of sexual assault and harassment, victims of retaliation, victims of discrimination, regular people like you and me, nurses, doctors, electricians, teachers, office workers, security guards and police officers, working class people, victims of unscrupulous employers and systems that depend on maintaining the status quo,” Laverde continued. “She is a trailblazer (who) ran a people-powered campaign for district attorney,” she said. “She refused to take money from corporations – she returned the donation from the biggest landlord in Berkeley.” Norman Birkenstock, who described himself as a senior leader in the Asian American and Philippine-American community, introduced Price. “I stand beside our minister of justice, Pamela Price,” Birkenstock said. “We stand strong, resolute, unwavering, for social justice, and public safety for all Asian Americans, all African Americans, all Hispanic Americans, (and) for all white Americans.” Ron Curtis, Oakland firefighter and paramedic for 19 years, focused on some of the attacks on Price. “All the negative things that have been said about Pamela Price and the negative press have been a lot of lies, a lot of misinformation,” Curtis said. “We’re having a war on injustice, and they’re having a war on us. They’ve been having a war on us for how many past generations. And Pamela Price gets into office for four months, and they’ve already started.” Continued on page 10
DA Pamela Price: A New Vision of Justice ‘No Matter What Side of the Law You’re On’ Congresswoman Barbara Lee and friend Harry Belafonte. “The
world lost a remarkable man today,” said Lee. “Harry Belafonte was a living legend, transcending racial barriers and making music history while fighting relentlessly for justice. His spirit and our friendship over the years will always be a blessing to me. Rest in Peace & Power, Mr. B.”
Pamela Price, shown with Mayor Sheng Thao and former Alameda County School Board Director, Gay Plair Cobb, campaigned on many iissues, including: re-examining cash bail, youth incarceration, victims’ rights, police accountability and services for the formerly incarcerated. Photo by Post Staff., By Post Staff Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price’s new vision of justice was inspired by a movement of progressive prosecutors like Boston’s Adam Foss and Chicago’s Kim Foxx. Foss captured the imagination of millions in a 2016 TED talk, Price said in a recent interview. The second catalyst for Price was the election of Kim Foxx as District Attorney for Cook County in Chicago in 2016. With major street creds -- raised by a drug addicted mother, surviving the crack epidemic and Chicago police brutality in the Black community -- Foxx brought a new paradigm to the role of district attorney by shifting focus to restorative justice over the white male version of “law and order.” Price’s vision models Foxx’s,
Oakland Teachers Vote to Strike; District Tries but Fails to Block Walkout
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
By Ken Epstein
Oakland teachers have voted overwhelmingly to conduct an Unfair Labor Practices strike against the Oakland Unified School District. A walkout could come as soon as Monday, May 1. In an online announcement, the Oakland Education Association (OEA) said 87% of members participated in the strike vote last week, with 88% of them voting in favor of authorizing a walkout.
The union says this action is a last resort after six months of fruitless negotiations with the district. According to OEA Interim President Ismael “Ish” Armendariz, “OUSD’s bad faith bargaining has been disrespectful to our educators and our community. Oakland educators and our community deserve better.” Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, OEA second vice president, said, “We’re bargaining for safe, stable, and racially just community schools. Our proposals for wages are to provide the kind of stability our schools [need] by demanding OUSD pay our entire bargaining unit a living wage. Educators need enough money to be able to stay in Oakland.” She said union proposals include “using vacant OUSD properties to house unhoused families in our district. We know that students thrive when their schools and their home lives are stable.” The union also seeks to increase the number of counselors
she says, re-examining positions on money bail, youth incarceration and more. “The 21st century prosecutor model questions… position on bail reform,” she said. “Do you believe money bail is appropriate or not? Youth incarceration. Should youth under the age of 18 be incarcerated without the possibility of parole?” Under the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, Black or Brown youth were criminalized and incarcerated for life, she said, but “as a 21st century prosecutor, we recognize the brain science (regarding) our youth. We recognize they operate on a level totally different from adults.” Youth are impulsive, easily influenced by their peers, and their ability to make good judgment calls and good decisions is limited, Continued on page 10
Harry Belafonte, Artist and Political Activist, 96
By Wanda Ravernell
Harry Belafonte, singer, actor and, above all, champion for social justice has died. He was 96. Born in Harlem, N.Y., in 1927 to poor West Indian immigrants, Belafonte catapulted to fame with a rendition of the “Banana Boat Song” in 1956, kicking off the American craze for Caribbean music. Handsome and charming, Belafonte broke through racial barriers in ways that previous Black performers – Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Paul Robeson -- had not. His Calypso album, which included the hits “Day-O,” (aka “The Banana Boat Song”) and “Jamaica Farewell,” topped the Billboard charts upon its release and sold 1 million copies. He eventually became the highest paid Black artist in history, appearing in venues across the country. Nonetheless, his introduction to show business was as an actor not a singer. He fell in love with theater after seeing a play by the American Negro Theater and took acting classes with contemporaries Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier garnering starring roles in two films in the early
and psychologists and improve school-site safety.
“We need OUSD to remove the
strings from their salary proposals
and partner with us to improve student support,” said Taiz-Rancifer.
District officials had asked the
state Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) to rule that a strike
Campus of Holy Names University.
HNU Says (Secret) Deadline Has Passed to File PERB refused to stop a strike. School officials told PERB Proposals to Save Campus would not be legal at this time and
issue an injunction against it, but
there is “no compelling state inter-
est that would justify a violation of students’ constitutional rights,
especially as this strike activity is based on threadbare allegations of harm.”
Among community leaders
in Oakland who are backing the
teachers’ union are Cat Brooks, leader of the Anti Police Terror Project, and George Galvis, ex-
ecutive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ).
By Ken Epstein
The Board of Trustees of Holy Names University (HNU), which has shown little interest in working with educational institutions or city leaders to maintain the campus a site for higher education, is now telling potential partners that a previously unmentioned deadline for submitting proposals has already passed, as of last Friday. The trustees had hired a real estate firm to sell the nearly 60acre property in the Oakland Hills
for top dollar to a developer of high-end housing. But the City of Oakland staff recently told HNU that such a development would violate the city’s general zoning regulations and is not permitted. Despite opposition of the trustees, many community leaders and city officials are moving forward for an educational future for the campus. In a statement released this week, Councilmember-at-Large Rebecca Kaplan reiterated city
1950s. After his success as a singer, Hollywood came calling and Belafonte appeared in several films, one of which, “Island in the Sun” stirred a lot of controversy as it implied a romantic relationship with a white woman, very much a taboo at the time. Belafonte became a ‘race man’ so to speak when he was encouraged to read the works of W.E.B. DuBois and other Black authors by college educated Black sailors when he was in the Navy in 1944. A Hampton Institute student further introduced him to further literature on Black history and culture. He married her, Marguerite Byrd in 1949. So, early on, Belafonte determined he would not just ‘shut up and sing.’ He was an admirer of Paul Robeson, a highly regarded athlete, actor and opera singer who was blacklisted because of speaking out on discrimination and support of the Communist Party. It could be said that Robeson was one of the first ‘artivists’ who used his fame and art in social causes. Unlike Robeson, Belafonte’s activism didn’t result in longContinued on page 10
leaders’ commitment to maintaining the HNU campus, including as a Historically Black College or University (HBCU): “The Holy Names University site can, and should, have an educational future to provide jobs, opportunity, train teachers and others for vital community needs, and preserve the intended purpose of the land, and the funding they have received. “I am honored to join together with community members, including alumni, students, and faculty of HNU, and many neighbors and others who are worried about the loss of vital educational programs. I am pleased that we have been able to identify the removal of all of the barriers to continued educational use, including verifying that neither the Attorney General, nor the lender, are requiring HNU to select a for-profit buyer, and there are educational users interested in acquiring the property,” she said. “In addition, given the Oakland general plan (zoning) designation of the site, and the intentions of the donors to Holy Names, it is appropriate to pursue an educational fuContinued on page 10