upcoming Oakland events

Friday is the First Friday in February, so there are Art Murmur events galore. And it being Friday, there's Off the Grid at the Oakland Museum. And February is also Black History Month, so there are a variety of events for that coming up. I've listed a few; for a more complete list check out the Oakland Wiki's page on Black History Month.

Friday

Off the Grid at OMCA - Friday, 5-9pm. The Off the Grid food truck pod comes to the Oakland Museum for an evening of food and fun.

Art Murmur - Friday, 5-10pm. Dozens of galleries. Lots of artists. Tons of people. It's the monthly chance to check out new art in uptown, eat from food trucks, and join the happenings. There are also Art Murmur events in Old Oakland, near Jack London Square, and more. (free)

Gallery Event: A Match Made in Oakland - Friday, February 1, 7pm. Blackball Universe hosts an artist reception and the opening of A Match Made in Oakland. (free)

Peace, Pies & Prophets: I'd Like to Buy an Enemy - Friday, February 1, 7pm. Join First Presbyterian Church of Oakland for an evening of theater, laughter, dialogue and an auction of homemade pies (!!!!) as we engage in discussion about peace, justice, and the American way. This performance, produced by Ted & Company, is part of a national tour, Peace Pies & Prophets, and is a fundraiser for the Positive Peace Warrior Network and Christian Peacemaker Teams. $12 donation, no one turned away due to lack of funds.

Innovators - Transforming the Landscape of Black America - Friday, 5-10pm. Come out to the 3rd annual Warehouse 416 Black History Month Exhibit and experience the legacy of Oakland Art. This year's show, Innovators is a special treat, focusing on an incredible group of artists, spanning four generations, who are continually breaking new ground in their work. Runs through February 23rd. (free)

Saturday

Black History Month tours - 10am, Saturday, February 2; Wednesday, February 6; Saturday, February 23. Explore downtown Oakland and learn how Lionel Wilson, Delilah Beasley, Robert Maynard, Byron Rumford, Marcus Foster and others changed Oakland and changed California. Read about last year's tour. (free)

Black History Month community garden work day - Saturday February 2, 11:00am-2:00pm. Join Bay Localize, the People's Grocery Urban Ag Crew, and Chestnut neighbors for a work day at the Chestnut Garden Corridor! (free)

Sunday

Free First Sunday at OMCA - Sunday, February 3, 11am-5pm. First Sundays are FREE! The Oakland Museum of California is free all day the first Sunday of every month. (free)

Oakland Wiki Sunday Edit-a-thons - Sundays, 1-5pm. Bring a computer or note-taking materials to hang with your fellow Oaklanders as we research and add content to the Oakland Wiki. This week's will meet at Sudoroom, 22nd and Broadway. (free)

Wednesday

Vintage porcelain at the Pardee Home - Wednesdays, 2nd Saturdays, 2nd Sundays. View the historic Pardee Home and the collection of porcelain collected by the globe-trotting Mrs. Pardee. You can take the tour for $5 or have the tour and tea for $25. Read more at World of Mailman. ($5/$25)

ongoing events:

• Art Murmur (1st Friday)
• Saturday Art Stroll (Saturdays)
• Mt. View Cemetery Tours (2nd and 4th Saturdays)
• Off the Grid at OMCA (Fridays)

looking further ahead:

Wish You Were Here: A Private Collection of Historic Oakland Postcards - Thursday, February 4, 7-8:30pm. Join local postcard collector and architect, Peter Espe, as he shares his collection of historic Oakland postcards and provides perspective on how this beautiful ephemera informs our understanding of the city's built environment. ($10/$15)

Half Life: Celebrating 30 Years of Working for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament - Sunday, Februrary 10, 5pm-9pm. Special Guests Dennis Kucinich, Daniel Ellsberg, Rep. Barbara Lee, and Rose Aguilar. "Reframing the Nuclear Discourse in the Current Geopolitical Climate." Optional "A Taste of Oakland" Special Reception. ($15-$100)

Film Showing and Program for Black History Month - Wednesday, February 20, 12-1:30pm. In conjunction with the Anza Trail traveling exhibit, join the Anza Trail, Peralta Hacienda, and the Oakland Black Cowboy Association for a showing of the Anza Trail Film, followed by a discussion of diversity in Early California. Oakland City Hall Hearing Room 2. (free)

Black History Tour in Mountain View Cemetery - Free 2 hour tour through Mountain View Cemetery highlighting African Americans who are buried there, including Jenny Prentiss (who raised Jack London), Byron Rumford, Lil' Bobby Hutton (of the Black Panthers) and more. February 23, 10AM, at Mountain View Cemetery. (free)

OMCA White Elephant Sale - March 2-3. It's the annual fundraiser for the Oakland Museum of California. It's bigger than big, it's huge! (free)

history: Fred Korematsu

Happy Fred Korematsu Day! Most people's response won't be "you, too!" or the like, but "who the heck is Fred Korematsu?" Nonetheless, today, January 30th is Fred Korematsu Day. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was a Japanese American from Oakland. When executive orders came after Pearl Harbor to remove people of Japanese ancestry from designated "military areas" and placed in internment camps, Fred refused the order and went into hiding, even undergoing plastic surgery.

Fred Korematsu was arrested May 30th, 1942, and tried and found guilty in September. He and his family were sent to the interment camp at Topaz, Utah. According to Wikipedia,

As an unskilled laborer, he was eligible to receive only $12 per month ($170.69 today) for working eight hours per day at the camp. He was placed in a horse stall with one light bulb, and he later remarked that "jail was better than this."

Korematsu faced not only oppression from the U.S. government, he also faced a backlash from Japanese Americans who had cooperated with the government in attempt to show their loyalty as Americans.

Fred's case was appealed several times and eventually reached the Supreme Court, where he lost in a 6-3 decision. Read more about the case on Wikipedia, Korematsu v. United States. In the 1980s, Japanese Americans who had been interred received $20,000 each in compensation. A subsequent investigation found that the solicitor general of the U.S. had suppressed FBI data that showed they were not a risk. In 1983, the conviction was formally vacated. The Supreme Court decision has not been formally overturned, though in 2011 they officially noted the decision was in error so that the case cannot be used as a legal precedent.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. Korematsu spoke out after September 11, 2001 on how the United States government should not let the same thing happen to people of Middle Eastern descent as had been done to Japanese Americans.

Fred Korematsu died in 2005 of respiratory failure. He is buried at Mountain View Cemetery, and his grave marker bears a replica of his Presidential Medal of Freedom. One of the last things Korematsu said was, "I'll never forget my government treating me like this. And I really hope that this will never happen to anybody else because of the way they look, if they look like the enemy of our country."

More reading:

• Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (Wikipedia)
• Korematsu v. United States (Wikipedia)
• Fred Korematsu Day
• Fred Korematsu (Lives of the Dead)

signs: Cafe Sahara

On the edge of Chinatown next to 880 is this rusted sign. The neon is in surprisingly good shape, as are the numerous small bulbs around the edge. I can't find any info about Cafe Sahara, though, just other pictures of the sign and graffiti-covered building. One photo mentions a fire in 2004 and $200,000 worth of marijuana plants that were discovered, but that's about it. Anybody know more about it?
update: See the comment from Oakland Daily Photo
update: See the entry at Oakland Wiki where @policyhobo has been investigating the Cafe Sahara story.

Mountain View Cemetery: Perimeter Tour

Saturday we had perfect weather for a walking tour at Mountain View Cemetery. Second Saturdays there are general tours to give people an overview, and fourth Saturdays there are more specialized tours focused on different subjects. This one was titled "Perimeter", which promised a fair amount of walking because of the size of Mountain View.

The tour was led by docents Stafford Buckley and Barbara Gibson. Also on hand was docent Michael Colbruno, author of the extremely interesting and useful Lives of the Dead website about the people of Mountain View Cemetery.

We started in the chapel in the main mausoleum with a brief overview of the cemetery, its founding and its design. It was founded in 1863 by a group of Oakland civic leaders who met at the house of Dr. Samuel Merritt. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape designer who also designed Central Park in New York.

We headed for the nearest point on the perimeter, with a few interesting stops along the way to note some different mausoleums and graves, including the stately Colton mausoleum. It's the resting place of David Colton, who is sometimes referred to as one of "the Big Four and a half" because of his involvement with "the Big Four" (Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford) of California and railroad history. The mausoleum is guarded by a pair of Greek-style sphinxes.

Along the southern perimeter there are several reservoirs, which were created by damming Cemetery Creek (which is known as Glen Echo Greek further downstream). They normally provide water for watering the cemetery grounds for 1 to 2 months of the dry season.

Nearby is one of the unendowed sections of Mountain View. Normally people purchase a plot or mausoleum crypt in Mountain View, which pays for its uptake in perpetuity. People were buried in the unendowed areas with no such promise, but as long as family or friends wanted, they could maintain the grave site. Areas of the unendowed section were also given to a number of charities, like the King's Daughters' Home, a hospital for people considered incurable. That building was designed by Julia Morgan, and still stands at 3900 Broadway.

We also heard about Blair's Park, an amusement park on the border between Oakland and Piedmont. It was created by Walter Blair, who owned property in the area, and featured boat rides, ponies, music and other amusements. Blair also owned the horsecar which brought vistors up the hill from Oakland.

We headed up the hill to see the eastern perimeter, which provided spectacular views of Oakland and the bay. Stafford said that on a clear day from the top of Hill 550 it's possible to see nine Bay Area counties. From the back of the hill you can see areas where many eucalyptus trees were cut down to decrease fire danger, and many, many more redwood seedlings have been planted in their stead.


We walked back downhill along the border shared with St. Mary's Cemetery, and past the influenza plot back to our starting point. As always, lots of interesting stuff to see and learn in Mountain View Cemetery!

Links to some things mentioned:

• Lives of the Dead website
• Barbara Gibson's Last Wishes site
• Mountain View Cemetery Symbols tour
• Mountain View Cemetery influenza plot
• the story of Aurelia Ghiradelli
• Frank Ogawa
• Fred Korematsu
• Piedmont Bath House (more pictures)

Lots more pictures from the tour:


After the tour was over, I rode my bike around to check out a few things for the Oakland Wiki and do some scouting for another history focused bike ride that's in the planning stages. And also to get a closer look at the grave of Fred Korematsu.

Even more pictures from after the tour:

photo of the week: Old Oakland Farmers Market

Imet with some fellow Oakland history buffs to plan a future Oakland history bike ride. We had lunch at Rosamunde (which has several vegan sausage options) and talked about Jack London and Julia Morgan, well-known past Oakland residents who share a January birthday. But before lunch, I wandered around the adjacent Old Oakland Farmers Market and found this scene.