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.

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.

Celebrating Malcolm X

In honor of the 84th birthday of Malcolm X, May 19, Sylvie Bayeaux and The Malcolm X Theater Project present Michael Lange in a one-man performance re-enacting Malcolm’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech.
Michael Lange has made hundreds of appearances nationwide performing speeches of Malcolm X over the last two decades. Lange, an Oakland native, teaches at San Jose State.  He is an accomplished actor, playwright, director, and musician. He is also the son of author and former television personality, Jerri Lange, and brother of actor Ted Lange.
An Oakland performance will take place on Sunday, May 24, 2 p.m., at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St.  The cost is $15 or $10 for students and seniors at the door.  Advance tickets are available for $10 at brownpapertickets.com.
A San Francisco performance will take place on Saturday, May 30, 2 p.m., at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) at 685 Mission St.  The cost is included in the $10 general or $5 student and senior admission to the museum.
For information contact (510) 485-6338.

Black Law Enforcement Honors Muranishi, Grinage and PUEBLO Cited For Leadership

Schools Receive Federal “Solar Showcase” Grant

Berkeley, Oakland, and West Contra Costa Unified School Districts are receiving up to $500,000 in assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to adopt solar generation technology and develop master plans to speed the installation of solar power in schools across California and the nation.
The DOE Solar America Showcase award is intended to support companies and local government entities that are “highly committed” to adopt solar technology and to accelerate the installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels across the country.
The Sequoia Foundation’s application on behalf of the three school districts detailed a specific effort to evaluate the energy consumption and solar electricity generation potential on all schools and facilities within the districts.
School districts stand to save millions of dollars in energy costs – the result of energy conservation, better energy efficiencies, and renewable energy systems.
During the 18-month grant period, the districts will select one or more schools to become a “showcase” where the most efficient and effective solar arrays will be installed.
“Oakland Unified School District is excited to be a participant in this innovative coalition of school districts,” said OUSD Assistant Superintendent for Facilities Planning and Management Timothy White.
“This grant will provide the type of high level assessment necessary to pave the way for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements throughout the district. We can’t wait to get started,” he said.

Volunteers Rehab Facilities of Greater New Beginnings Youth Services

Over 2,000 volunteers from Oakland and the surrounding Bay Area put on their overalls picked up their tools and start hammering, sawing, painting and plumbing on National Rebuilding Day.
This local effort, coordinated by Rebuilding Together Oakland (RTO), took place on April 25, which involved repairing and rehabilitating 25 homes and eight community facilities. National Rebuilding Day culminated RTO’s month-long effort running every Saturday in April where thousands of volunteers work multiple weekends to renovate community centers and the homes of low-income seniors and disabled persons all across Oakland.
“What makes National Rebuilding Day and RTO’s efforts so special is that our volunteers’ work helps our most vulnerable citizens – the elderly and disabled – remain in their homes and maintain their safety, comfort and independence,” said Kym Luqman, Executive Director of Rebuilding Together Oakland.
“Moreover, by renovating community facilities, volunteers can leverage their work even more by allowing the facilities to focus scarce dollars on valuable programs for the community instead of maintenance,” she said.
One team from Cannon Constructors & Holliday Development repaired the home of an elderly woman whose home was abandoned by an unscrupulous contractor. A volunteer team from Skanska renovated the East Oakland Youth Development Center’s community center.
The facility of Greater New Beginnings, a residential program that provides services and support to at-risk male youth was repaired by Pankow Builders.  Union Bank of California is underwrote the renovation of two facilities – Santa Fe Elementary School and the Metropolitan Horseman’s Association.
The Redevelopment Agency of the City of Oakland supported the repair of eight homes by community, corporate and faith-based volunteer groups.
Rebuilding Together is the largest volunteer rehabilitation organization in America, providing free services to low-income homeowners, particularly the elderly, disabled and families with children.

Oakland Joins Green Corridor Partnership

By Brian Lavelle

The East Bay Green Corridor Partnership will move to the next level this summer when six new partners join the project.
Last year, the mayors of Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and Emeryville joined the heads of UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to announce the partnership, which aims to promote economic development in the region based on new green technologies.
This June, the cities of Alameda, Albany, El Cerrito and San Leandro and the Peralta and Contra Costa Community College Districts will become members. Each partner will contribute $10,000 to hire a staff member who’ll be based at the East Bay Economic Development Alliance office in Oakland, according to Julie Sinai, chief of staff for Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates.
The partnership has already received a $147,000 grant from the federal government for job training and will compete for other funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. “The fact that we’ve been doing this for a year has really positioned us well,” Sinai said.
The corridor’s vision calls for the partners to share resources, so that all could use the green job-training programs in Richmond and Oakland, for example, or Berkeley’s Rising Sun Energy Center, which employs young people to install energy-saving improvements in homes.
The Oakland Green Jobs Corps is currently training 46 students in green construction and photovoltaics. Students spend two days per week at Laney College learning mathematics and other necessary skills and three days at the Cypress Mandela Training Center in West Oakland learning job skills.
They have already completed a 16-week pre-apprenticeship training program. Upon graduation, students will be placed in construction and solar industry jobs.
Carol Browner, President Barack Obama’s Assistant for Energy and Climate Change this month visited the Cypress Mandela Training Center, saying,  “It is so impressive what you all are doing.” She called the Green Jobs Corps a model for the nation.
“It is both a privilege and an honor to be able to launch the Green Jobs Corps here through the City of Oakland under Mayor (Ron) Dellums with our partners Laney College and Growth Sector…. Students that come from disadvantaged backgrounds … will have an opportunity to make a livable wage through the Green Construction Jobs Corps,” said Arthur Shanks, Executive Director of Cypress Mandela in an interview with the Post.
The program will help reduce crime and unemployment in Oakland, Shanks added.
Richmond’s BUILD Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Skills & Solar Installation Training program has graduated 150 participants since its inception in April 2007. The program has an impressive 90 percent job placement rate at an average starting wage of $18.33 an hour. The job retention rate is 85 percent for program graduates.
Both the Oakland and Richmond training programs have received national recognition.
The green jobs movement received a boost recently when Oakland activist Vann Jones was named special adviser for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation in the White House.
Jones was a founder of the Ella Baker Center and of Green for All, a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.
“The debate over whether we can do right by the environment and right by the economy at the same time is over,” said Jones in an Earth Day statement.
Former President Bush had long claimed that the United States could not join other advanced countries in the Kyoto Protocols to reduce global warming because it would hurt the economy.

Oakland Museum Presents “African Presence in Mexico”

The Oakland Museum of California’s new exhibition, “The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present,” will examine Africa’s overlooked historical contributions to Mexican culture.
In 1609 Yanga, an African leader, founded the first free African township in the Americas, almost a century after Africans first arrived in Mexico (in 1519).
Africans have continued to contribute their artistic, culinary, musical, and cultural traditions to Mexican culture. The exhibition features paintings, prints, movie posters, photographs, sculpture, costumes, masks, musical instruments, and other examples of art and popular culture.
The exhibition was curated by Sagrario Cruz-Carretero of the University of Veracruz and Cesáreo Moreno, visual arts director at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago.
The bilingual exhibition features paintings, prints, movie posters, photographs, sculpture, costumes, masks, and musical instruments. “It’s a fascinating hybrid—a visual arts exhibition based on a cultural history,” says co-curator Evelyn Orantes.
The exhibition will be on view May 9 through Sunday, August 23. For information, go to http://www.museumca.org/exhibit/exhi_apim.html

Task Force Calls for Enhanced Civilian Police Review

By Brian Lavelle

The Community Task Force on Police Issues this week presented a report to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee calling for beefing up the Civilian Police Review Board, while cutting back the police department’s Internal Affairs Department.
The report recommends that the city spend $1.2 in next year’s budget to hire 14 staff persons for the Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) and would also direct the interim Chief of Police to redeploy 10 officers from the Internal Affairs Department to other functions within the Police Department.
The goal of the task force, which was convened by Mayor Ron Dellums, is to strengthen civilian oversight of the police, while saving resources to devote to improving public safety. Civilian complaints would be handled by the CPRB.
Currently, complaints can be directed to either the civilian review board or to the Internal Affairs Department of the Police, but the vast majority are handled by internal affairs. Budget cuts have reduced the staff of the civilian review board to one full-time person.
The task force report says that the current system of handling civilian complaints duplicates resources and lacks credibility. Civilian staff would cost considerably less than the sworn officers, who could then be transferred to Criminal Investigation, which is severely understaffed, according to the report.
“Many in the community would have more confidence in the objectivity and credibility of investigations of their complaints against police if they knew that their complaints were going to be received and reviewed by fellow citizens, rather than sworn officers,” the report said.
Speaking for the Police Department, Lt. Christopher Shannon, of Internal Affairs, opposed the recommendation, calling it a “huge step backwards.” He maintained that “OPD in the last three years has come a very long way,” and that Internal Affairs investigators are “highly trained, not just doing administrative work.”
Mary Vail, of the Mayor’s Task Force, said she was surprised by the department’s response, which seems to have changed since the departure of Chief Wayne Tucker.
She said she thought “we came to consensus on these matters.”
A representative from the office of Oakland attorney John Burris also called it “very disappointing” that the Department did not even offer an incremental plan to transition to civilian oversight. “We would be more than willing to help them implement civilianization,” he said.
However, Deputy Chief of Police Jeff Israel said the department does not oppose civilian oversight. He agreed that the community would trust a civilian investigation more than “cops investigating cops” and indicated that “there are ways to make this work.”
Speaking of the reforms mandated by federal court in the  “Riders Case,” Israel indicated that changes were only implemented recently.
“We really didn’t implement the reforms, I would say, until early last year,” he said.

Black Police Group Hired to Review BART Police

The BART Board of Directors has unanimously selected a national organization of Black police officers to conduct a comprehensive top-to-bottom review of the BART Police Department in the wake of the Jan. 1 killing of Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale BART Station platform.
“The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) will look into all aspects of the BART Police Department,” BART Boardmember Carole Ward Allen said.
Ward Allen chairs the Board’s newly created BART Police Department Review Committee whose aim is to provide greater focus on the exercise of BART Police responsibilities.
The review will take approximately four months and cost $127,688.
NOBLE was hired to provide an independent assessment of the fundamental aspects of BART police, including recruitment, hiring and promotion training and equipment in the  use of force, conduct of investigations, diversity, cultural awareness and sensitivity and avoidance of racial profiling; and  policies and procedures to determine if they are comprehensive and reflect best practices.
“The goal of the study will be to provide BART with evaluation results and recommendations that will help us identify any changes we need to make to ensure the BART Police Department is structured and administered effectively and that the department follows the industry’s best practices as appropriate in the environment in which BART operates,” Joel Keller, Vice Chair of the BART Police Department Review Committee said.
As part of this process, NOBLE proposes community engagement approach that is designed to bring law enforcement and concerned citizens together to identify community concerns and apply principles of community policing to create a shared vision and joint strategy to address concerns.
“What we really liked about NOBLE’s proposal is that the organization truly demonstrated it understands the value of engaging the community in the process while at the same time it showed it has the expertise to conduct a comprehensive top to bottom review of our police force,” BART Boardmember Lynette Sweet said.
Founded in September 1976,  NOBLE has a long history helping numerous police departments across the country.

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