Oakland Post “Where there is no vision, the people perish...” Proverbs 29:18
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58th Year, No. 52
Weekly Edition. Edition. June 15-21, 2022
Juneteenth Holiday Touches Collective Memory of African Americans: It Deserves Honor Commentary
By Wanda J. Ravernell
Councilmember Noel Gallo (second from right) holds weekly volunteer trash cleanups in his Fruitvale District neighborhoods. He says that voters should be able to decide whether to give $1 billion in public funds to the Oakland A’s private real estate development instead of prioritizing health and safety in the neighborhoods, including toxic waste cleanups. Photo courtesy of Noel Gallo.
Council to Decide July 5 If Voters Can Weigh in on Howard Terminal Stadium Financing Councilmember Gallo authors resolution to put funding of real estate project on November ballot
By Ken Epstein
The majority of the City Council’s Rules Committee voted this week to place an item on the Tuesday, July 5 Council meeting agenda to decide whether voters will be able to decide whether they want to spend more than a billion dollars in public funds on billionaire John Fisher’s private Port development. The resolution at the Thursday Rules Committee, submitted by Councilmember Noel Gallo, was supported by Councilmembers Carroll Fife, Sheng Thao, and Nikki Fortunato Bas. Councilmember Dan
Kalb abstained. In an interview with the Oakland Post before the meeting, Councilmember Gallo said, “I still believe that the Council’s input is necessary, (but) based on letters, emails, texts, and conversations in the neighborhood, people are demanding that this item should go before the voters,” Councilmember Gallo said. “I support that effort. I am here to represent the public, not the Fisher family or the Oakland Athletics. We’re still paying for the Raiders not being here and for the Warriors not being here. I don’t want to see that continue,” he said.
Gallo continued: The billion dollars “is being requested by a private business, the Oakland Athletics. We should develop the Coliseum for professional sports teams and housing, and the Howard Terminal should be used for development opportunities and for businesses at the Army Base and the Port of Oakland.” If the deal goes through, “the Fisher family would become the biggest developer and investor in Oakland. I want to make sure we get a return on our investment,” he said. Gallo recently authored Continued on Page 12
It was a long time coming. For centuries, they had prayed, fought and died seeking freedom from slavery. The day they had awaited they called ‘Jubilee.’ Depending on where they resided, the day of ‘Jubilee’ came in fits and starts. In New Hampshire, the last slave was freed in 1853, New York in 1827 and Pennsylvania by 1810. Enslaved people vicariously celebrated the 1791 revolt in Haiti leading to the first Black republic in the Western Hemisphere in 1804. The 1834 manumission of Blacks in Jamaica was another milestone. During the slave era, New Year’s Day was dreaded as it was when enslavers settled their debts with the lives of their ‘property.’ New Year’s Eve, then was not celebrated, but rather spent in fervent prayer that their loved ones not be sold away. Dec. 31, 1862, then, would become the Watch Night of all Watch Nights. Ninety-nine days earlier, Pres. Abraham Lincoln had announced his intention to free people enslaved in most of the Southern states. It was sometime late the morning of Jan. 1, 1863, when Lincoln finally signed the document known as the Emancipation Proclamation and word immediately crossed the country, tapped out in Morse code on telegraph wires. But news of Jubilee didn’t reach Texas. It would be two and half years and more than two months after the Confederate army surrendered to a Union Army that in-
Gallo Wants the Voters to Decide If the City Should Spend $1 Billion of Its Public Funds on a Privately Owned Stadium and Luxury Condos By Paul Cobb
The Oakland A’s have finally met their match. Councilmember Noel Gallo is courageously bringing forward two significant pieces of legislation to stop the A’s bullying of the City of Oakland. Gallo convinced his colleagues on the Council to unanimously vote for a public hearing and an independent third-party analysis of the costs, benefits, and risks to the city of funding the A’s private-
Opinion ly owned stadium and luxury condo project at Howard Terminal. He has also introduced legislation to place a measure on the November 2022 ballot to allow residents to vote on whether public money should be spent on the A’s private development. We salute Noel and encourage the Council to support his efforts. Oakland faces many critical issues including homelessness,
affordable housing, crime, and keeping schools open. City officials need to focus attention on getting those issues under control. Instead, the A’s attempt to bully them into spending over $ billion on their new stadium and luxury housing project. Let’s peel away the layers of the onion. The A’s promise union jobs. But the truth is that all the new jobs they promote are construction jobs that could be created at the Coliseum if they built their stadium there. And that would not cost $1 billion
because the land is already approved for development and there are fewer infrastructure needs there than at Howard Terminal. Meanwhile, if the A’s build at Howard Terminal they weaken a working port and threaten the loss of hundreds of good-paying existing ILWU union jobs. The A’s threaten that if they don’t get their way they will leave and eliminate Oakland’s last sports team. Right now, there are fewer fans at A’s games than there are homeContinued on Page 12
Oakland Receives $6 Million Grant to Support Violence Intervention and Prevention By Candace Reese Walters
The City of Oakland is excited to announce that it has received a three-year grant for $5,999,948 from the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) and California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) program to strengthen the social service component of Oakland’s Ceasefire initiative. This grant will significantly strengthen our efforts to reduce fatal and non-fatal shootings with injury in Oakland by allowing the city to implement the following four evidencebased practices with individuals who are at the highest risk for perpetrating or being vic-
Guillermo Cespedes, chief of Oakland’s DVP.
timized by gun violence: • Prevention and Intervention Family Systems Model (PIFSM) • Street outreach • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) • Crime prevention through environmental design (CPT-
ED) All grant activities will be implemented by the City’s Department of Violence Prevention (DVP). The DVP will hire six family coaches to implement a prevention and intervention family systems approach, with 192 high-risk individuals and their families in 6-month cohorts, seeking the goal of improving family communication and cohesion to prevent future violence. Street outreach workers will perform relentless outreach with high-risk individuals to proactively mediate conflicts and engage individuals in services. Through a partnership with Roca, Inc., family coaches, outreach workers, and su-
pervisors will be trained in cognitive-behavioral concepts to use with clients and their families. Lastly, outreach workers will identify aspects of the built and natural environment that support gun violence and work with city departments to remediate them. CalVIP funding has been highly successful at reducing gun violence in California during prior years. Cities that received CalVIP grants during the 2018 grant cycle saw gun homicides decrease nearly three times more than cities that did not receive CalVIP support. Oakland currently mainContinued on Page 12
Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, in a decorated carriage parked in front of the Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston’s Fourth Ward, 1908. Photo courtesy of Houston Public Library Digital Collection.
cluded Black men that soldiers brought the news to Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. The date would be contracted to Juneteenth and become the most widely and continuous celebration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Other states had Freedom Day or Emancipation
Day, but those observations had died out as, for the sake of assimilation, Blacks distanced themselves from that dark past. But not Black Texans, who took their custom with them during the Great Migration that Continued on Page 12
NAACP’s Juneteenth Celebration Sunday June 19,11 a.m. - 4 p.m. at DeFremery Park, Oakland See Page 8
Dr. Ruth Love, 90, Passed By Dr. Martha C. Taylor
Ruth Burnet Love was born, on April 22, 1932, in Lawton, Okla., and passed away on June 2, 2022, in Oakland. As I reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. Ruth Love, her achievements, aptitude, and character, she cast a wide shadow that not only touched the lives of young people, she helped to shape them into achievers of excellency. Dr. Love, the widely admired educator, lived a long life filled with quality for self and others. Love says life is a gift. “We all have an awesome responsibility not to waste time.” She gave the highest and best we can give to life; the gift of self. Dr. Love was the second of five children born to Alvin E. and Burnett C. Love, who migrated to Bakersfield, California during the 1940s. Love graduated from Bakersfield High School in 1950. Love attended San Jose State University and received her Bachelor’s Degree in education in1954. In 1959 she received her Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling from San Francisco State University. In 1970, Love received
Dr. Ruth B. Love, 1977,wikipedia
her Ph.D. in Human Behavior and Psychology from the United States International University, San Diego. Love’s interest in becoming a teacher began at an early age. She wanted to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, Andrew A. Williams, who was a runaway slave at age twelve, and a teacher who founded the first school for African Americans in Lawton, Oklahoma. In 1960 Dr. Love began her career in education as an adult education teacher with the Oakland Unified School District. Love became an exchange teacher sent to England in 1961. She also was a professor of education at San Continued on Page 12
The Oakland Police Commission Needs You!
We need residents committed to reform to apply to be on the Police Commission. You must be over 18 and live in Oakland, and you can’t be a police officer or City of Oakland employee. You do not need to have a high school diploma or work history. Formerly incarcerated individuals are encouraged to apply. The job of Commissioner is rewarding, but it is not an easy one! Are you ready to spend time in meetings, meeting preparation, and committee work? Are you ready to face occasional resistance from City Hall and criticism from the community? Can you work with people you disagree with? Can you disagree without being disrespectful? Are you ready to be part of public meetings that are recorded and shown on KTOP (the City’s cable station)? Are you willing to learn more? If this sounds like a fit, see below! To apply, go to www.oaklandca.gov/policecommission. If you don’t have access to the Internet, or if you have any questions, call Selection Panel member Lorelei at (510) 368-5598 between 10 a.m. - 8 p.m., any day. Applications are due June 30, 2022.