Faith Presbyterian Celebrates 63rdAnniversary

By Barbara Fluhrer

Following a Saturday Prayer Breakfast with “food so good it made you want to holler,” according to Pastor Rev. Frank Jackson, the congregation at Faith Presbyterian Church gathered last Sunday morning for 63rd Anniversary worship celebration, “As God’s Light Shines, Let’s Refine in ‘09”.
“Faith was the first Black   Presbyterian church in Northern California,” Pianist Torrey Hill told members.
Faith Presbyterian is located at 430 49th St. in Oakland.
Musical offerings included “Give Me a Clean Heart” by Soprano Peggy Shearron and a liturgical dance by Rachel Jackson and Remi Rucker, owners of “Destined 2 Dance.” Professional Bass player Terry Hilliard gave strong accompaniment to the morning worship service joined by guitarist Darnell Pipkin and James Willoughby on drums.

Guest preacher Rev. Cecil Williams Jr., associate minister at F.A.M.E. Oakland, delivered the word, “I’m Not Tired Yet.”  He compared Jericho to the “war in Oakland, right outside your front door.”
“Tragedies happen every day on some level here in Oakland,” he said, pointing out that  “between 73rd and 98th, along MacArthur, there must be 15 churches.”
Referring to the recent killing of Oakland police officers, he questioned how a young man could have slipped through the cracks.
“He began dying 13 years before the bullets, when he dropped out of school,” Williams said, asking, “What has happened to Sunday morning?”
He remembered what a different morning it used to, how everything used to stop on Sunday. and the Black church was the place you could go to get relief from the week’s pressures.
Williams took the church to task. “Who are we to reject people?  Jesus took them in!” He stated.

Tamika Nicole Lets Go With Gospel, Soul and Blues on New CD

By Lee
Hildebrand

“I know you ain’t right. I gotta constantly fight to keep you outta my life,” Tamika Williams-Clark sings in pain-soaked alto tones on “Only (You Ain’t Right),” a tune from “The Art of Letting Go,” her just-released second CD.
Upon first hearing, one would think that the Oakland-born, San Leandro-based vocalist, known professionally as Tamika Nicole, is singing about a no-good man, but closer listening reveals it’s about her ongoing battle with something far more sinister.
“I’m talking about the devil,” she explains. “It’s about that relationship a lot of Christian people have, myself included, whereas you want to do the right thing, but you just can’t seem to get it right. I aim to be stronger and know that I need to be better if I’m with God.”
“Only (It Ain’t Right)” is one of several religious songs on the disc, which also includes tunes about romance and other earthly matters, even a blues. Tamika wrote all 10 tunes herself, in collaboration with producers Jimi Fischer and Jamie Hawkins.
Unlike Jennifer Hudson and other secular artists who sometimes place one gospel song at the end of their albums, Tamika puts hers smack dab in the middle of “The Art of Letting Go.”
“My Christian beliefs don’t happen at the end of my life; they happen every day,” she says. “Even if I’m performing in a club, I still have God with me. I love God regardless of where I am. I won’t put it in a box and take it out when it’s convenient to do.”
Keyboardist Jamie Hawkins, son of gospel music greats Walter and Tramaine Hawkins, now serves as Tamika’s bandleader. They met at Love Center church through Jamie’s wife, former Broadway actress Sunny Hawkins, who is Tamika’s Sigma Gamma Rho sorority sister. Tamika’s next scheduled appearance with her band is at 10 a.m. June 6 at the Cherry City Faire in downtown San Leandro.
The new CD contains a highly sensual song titled “Chocolate Carmel Brown,” which first appeared on her 2001 debut disc, “My Message.” That CD was totally ignored by commercial radio stations in the U.S., although it did create something of a buzz in England and Japan, which is so often the case with American artists on independent labels.
“Enough,” a gospel song from the current CD, has been played by Tinka Floyd on her KMEL gospel program. Tamika is hoping secular programmers will pick up on some of her other songs.
Tamika presently is composing a bunch of blues songs that she plans to record on a CD by herself and other singers. “I really like the blues,” she says.
“I think it fits our time, but people don’t do it appropriately. They’ll write a blues song, but it’ll be about something from 30 years ago, as opposed to right now. People are struggling right now, and I write songs from the fact that people are struggling. Because I struggled, I understand what that’s like.”

Keith Givan Excels at St. Leo the Great School

By Tasion Kwamilele

Keith Givan, raised by his grandmother Elenda Givan since birth, is a young boy who strives for excellence. Whether it’s the discipline he practices in his martial arts or his passion for academics, his commitment to achievement speaks highly of his character even though he is only 8 years old.
Keith attended New Day School Preschool, started by two women who had graduated from Cal State East Bay. It was here that Keith began to blossom, and his qualities of leadership began to flourish. By the age of 3, he began reading and could even count to 100.
Now attending St. Leo the Great Catholic School in Oakland, Keith continues to excel. His test scores in reading and comprehension, science and math are above average. In first grade, he learned how to write and began making detailed reports on various subjects, with vocabulary far beyond his years.

Youth Radio Photographer Ayesha Walker : UCLA and Egypt Bound

By Tasion
Kwamilele

For Ayesha Walker, a native of Richmond, CA, this is starting out to be a very good year.
Walker, 21, was recently accepted at UCLA, where she start in the  fall as a major in world arts and cultures.  Could there be anything greater?
How about a trip to Egypt?
On May 28, Walker will embark on a 19-day excursion to Egypt. She will fly to JFK airport in New York and then board an 18-hour flight that will take her to the motherland.
“I am very excited, but I don’t believe it will hit me until I am actually there,” she said.
A graduate of El Cerrito High School in 2006, she has been attending Contra Costa College and last year took a picture with  Barack Obama at the San Francisco’s Women’s Building.
The trip to Egypt began when her passion for photography brought her attention to an advertisement for individuals interested in traveling to the country on a photojournalism assignment.
Taken aback by the cost, $5,000, she hesitated but was not discouraged. She made up in her mind that she was going to go and began to do everything possible to raise the funds.
“My mother is my biggest support. My father passed away when I was younger, and my grandmother died last year. So only able to depend on my mother, I’ve always felt like my support system was minimal,” she said.
“But with the outpouring of supporters, I now know I have a huge support system,” Walker explained.
Her favorite number is nine, and this is  2009; maybe this trip was destined, she said. And with all the great opportunities coming her way, Generation neXt agrees and wishes Walker the best.

Free Four Seasons Concert, May 3

Tickets are still available for  the free Memorial Concert for W. Hazaiah Williams by world renowned African American pianist, Leon Bates, Sunday, May 3 at 4 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theatre in Oakland.
To reserve your tickets: call (510)845-4444 and they will hold them at the door. No charge!

“Next Day Air,” Weak Trailer But Exciting Film

By Sandra Varner

Do you determine what movie you’d like to see based on the trailer?  If so, don’t let this one fool you.  The “Next Day Air” movie trailer does not get me excited about this movie. However, since I write about films, it is my duty to see as many as I can.
Thank goodness I saw the movie. I was very pleasantly surprised.
The premise is very simple.  What happens when a next day delivery is delivered to the wrong address?  Well, this simple scenario is a bonanza of a story in the comedy drama, “Next Day Air,” directed by music video legend Benny Boom (Scarface: Origins of a Hip Hop Classic), and starring Mike Epps (Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins), Wood Harris (“The Wire”), Donald Faison (“Scrubs”), Omari Hardwick (“Saved”), Emilio Rivera (“Weeds”), Darius McCrary (“Family Matters”), Cisco Reyes, Yasmin Deliz, Mos Def (16 Blocks, The Italian Job) and Debbie Allen (“A Different World”).
Smalltime hoods Brody (Epps) and Guch (Harris) have seen better days. But when a wacked-out courier named Leo (Faison) accidentally brings them a box containing 10 kilos of high-quality cocaine meant for their next-door neighbors, all breaks loose and the consequences could cost them their lives.
Brody and Guch immediately arrange to sell the coke to Brody’s drug dealer cousin (Hardwick) and his tightlipped bodyguard (McCrary). But when the intended recipients of the package, wannabe gangster Jesus (Reyes) and his feisty girlfriend (Deliz), realize the box hasn’t arrived, they set out on a desperate search to find it before ruthless drug kingpin Bodega Diablo (Rivera) notices it’s missing.
But it’s too late. Furious over the loss of his shipment, Bodega will stop at nothing to get the drugs back. With Brody and Guch’s deal about to go down, heavy gunfire follows. And whoever’s still standing when the smoke clears could walk away with nearly a million dollars in cash and drugs!
Interviews with “Next Day Air” cast members will be posted at www.Talk2SV.com.

Alameda County to Operate San Leandro Hospital?

By Karen Holzmeister
The Daily Review

Could San Leandro Hospital, with its many vacant patient beds and bustling emergency room, become Alameda County’s next public hospital?
County officials are in private and ongoing talks with Sutter Health, which operates San Leandro Hospital, to use the centrally located medical complex as a backup to Oakland’s Highland Hospital.
Half of the 27,000 patients who come yearly to San Leandro Hospital’s ER are Oakland residents, county Health Care Services Agency Director Dave Kears said two weeks ago.
George Bischalaney, chief executive officer of Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, a Sutter Health affiliate, said the county has made “an expression of interest in the San Leandro campus, if decisions made in the future result in its being available.”
Discussions “are occurring” between the county and Sutter, acknowledged Ruben Briones, deputy chief of staff to county Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker, whose district includes San Leandro.
Neither man would disclose whether the county is interested in buying or leasing San Leandro Hospital, or contracting with Sutter for services.
Sutter has the first option to buy the hospital at East 14th Street and 138th Avenue, which, as far as the general community knows, is in limbo.
Sutter Health and Eden Medical Center operate San Leandro Hospital through June 2010 under a contract with the Eden Township Healthcare District, which owns San Leandro Hospital. San Leandro residents and local medical workers, who fear Sutter will convert San Leandro Hospital for other uses if it buys the facility, are lobbying local and county-elected representatives to keep the 122-bed hospital and its ER open.
The county now is reviewing plans for a new Eden Medical Center. The residents and medical workers want approval of that complex linked to a requirement that Sutter continue to subsidize operating costs at San Leandro Hospital, where Kears said only 40 percent of the beds are filled, on average. Income from insurance and patient payments also does not cover the bills.
“What will happen if there is a disaster?” San Leandro resident Gloria Pineo asked the San Leandro City Council on Monday. “What if we cannot get to Eden?”
About 50 health care workers and former San Leandro Hospital patients picketed the county administration building in Oakland on Tuesday, where supervisors postponed discussion of the Eden plan until May 12.

San Lorenzo Schools Cut More Positions

By Jason Sweeney

San Lorenzo High School library technician Margaret Casey criticized the San Lorenzo Unified School District board and Superintendent Dr. Dennis Byas at a board meeting Tuesday night.
The district has been making budget cuts attempting to close a $7 million shortfall for the next school year.
Due to the cuts, Casey, who works seven hours a day, is seeing her hours reduced to two per day. The pay scale for her position is between $16 and $20 an hour. She said her income is already below the poverty line, and she will be forced to seek a second job.
“I want you to look at me. I am a person,” Casey said to the board. “Shame on you. You gotta do what you gotta do, but shame on you.”
During the meeting, Byas came under fire from Casey and Cathy Lee, president of the San Lorenzo Education Association, for his salary of around $250,000 per year.
Lee said 77 full-time teachers and counselors have received layoff notices, and another 60 temporary teachers are being released, “which is 23 percent of all teachers and counselors in San Lorenzo.”
She questioned how the district could justify laying off so many teachers while paying the superintendent a salary and benefits package that amounts to more than $300,000 per year.
Following public comment, the board voted unanimously to reduce the hours and cut several full-time and part-time nonteaching positions, including library technicians, a campus security guard and bilingual teaching assistants.
At its meeting last month, the board voted to cut about $3.2 million in ongoing expenses and $4.2 million in one-time expenses to make up for the budget shortfall. With the personnel cuts, class sizes for the next school year were raised from 20 students to 24.5 in kindergarten through third grade and in the ninth grade. At that meeting, parents, teachers and students filled the district’s main office and flowed out into the halls.
The district has an annual budget of about $60 million and employs about 1,100 people, with a total student enrollment of about 11,000.

FACES AROUND THE BAY

Mayor to Release Report on “African American Out-Migration

ACE on the CASE

Many people in the community are anticipating with interest a soon-to-be-released report from Gavin Newsome’s Task Force on African American Out-Migration from San Francisco.
The report, which is expected to come out by the middle of May, focuses on key issues that face African Americans in this city and proposes some comprehensive solutions.
We are hearing that the report will contain some of the following shocking findings: the percentage of very low-income households increased from over one-half of African American households in 1990 to over two-thirds in 2005; one-fourth of African Americans lived in poverty in 2000, over twice the rate of other groups; Black-owned business declined form 1997 to 2002 by one-fourth and business receipts declined by 60.7 percent.
In this era of federal stimulus spending, there exists opportunities for new and innovative programs to address the needs of the community in the areas of jobs, housing, education and training, health and business development.
We look forward to seeing the solutions proposed by the Mayor’s task force.

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