Events

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday

Published

6 years ago

January 12, 2019

Carolyn McKinstry, civil rights advocate and lifelong member of 16th Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., will deliver the keynote address at the 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Birthday Celebration in Hayward on Jan. 21, 2019.

A witness to the Ku Klux Klan bombing on Sept. 15, 1963, McKinstry will bring to Hayward the rare perspective of being both a child of and an eyewitness to some of the most jarring aspects of the fight for civil rights by African Americans, a distinction noted by Publishers Weekly in a review of McKinstry’s 2011 memoir, “While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement.”

McKinstry was among thousands of students hosed by firemen during the 1963 civil rights marches and survived a second bomb explosion that destroyed a large portion of her home in 1964. Decades later, she was a subpoenaed witness in the 2002 trial of Bob Cherry, who was one of three men subsequently convicted of the 1963 church bombing.

McKinstry is a native of Birmingham and was educated in its public schools. She is a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., and has received a Master of Divinity degree from Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.

In addition to her keynote address, the King Birthday Celebration event, held annually on the Martin Luther King federal holiday, will feature presentation of an annual Community Award and performances by the Mount Eden High School Choir. It takes place starting at 4:30 p.m. at Reed L. Buffington Performing Arts Center, Chabot College, 25555 Hesperian Blvd., in Hayward.

The event is free and tickets are available on Eventbrite.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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1 day ago

November 1, 2024

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Oakland Post: Week of October 23 – 29, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 23 – 29, 2024

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1 week ago

October 26, 2024

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Arts and Culture

Soaring Birds and Towering Waves Greet Attendees at 29th Annual Maafa Commemoration at Ocean Beach

The 29th Annual MAAFA Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area was held at Ocean Beach, Sunday, Oct. 13. Warm and cloudy with waves as high as tall buildings, we gathered to honor African ancestors who died by the millions over the centuries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Published

2 weeks ago

October 21, 2024

Oakland Post

Ayikwei H. Scott (drummer standing), Dr. Uzo Nwankpa (seated), Iya Nefertina Abrams (in background), unnamed participant to the left. Next frame: co-founder, Sister Wanda Sabir at mic. MAAFA winged chorus (center frame). We are singing the MAAFA song Brotha Clint composed. Chorus: Sister Wanda and Antwuanette Queen-Pope, Brother Desmond Iman, Baba Darinxoso Oyamasela. Minister Alisha Teasley (Lower right). Photo montage by Zochi.

By Wanda Sabir

Special to The Post

The 50 or so children and adults attending Maafa, Kiswahili word meaning ‘great disaster,’ came from as far as Monterey and Sacramento to just up the block. We all felt the ancestors’ ethereal embrace as Min. Imhotep and Min. Alicia of Wo’Se Community Church poured libations and invited us to call their names with our mouths, feet, and hands.

Birds on the beach lifted their wings in flight moving towards us and flying overhead the way legends say African ancestors flew away from plantation fields. Their collective Aṣé!

The theme for the 29^th Maafa event was accountability and as Zochi led us through Mu-i (pronounced moo-ee, a movement meditation) we embraced our power from our roots through our crown chakras. Dr. Uzo Nwankpa, a healer in residence at Freedom Community Clinic, taught us the Igbo war chant —“Eyinmba” which was also an embodied movement.

Our ancestral poet this year was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), born in Baltimore to free parents. She was a poet, abolitionist, suffragist, educator, and freedom fighter who lived in Philadelphia.
“It’s time to be a grown person,” Wanda Sabir, Maafa CEO stated. “Own up, fess up, get righteous. Accountability means we don’t blame others for our poor choices and their consequences. We don’t blame the system, genetic weakness, structural racism, poverty of the soul, families of origin, peer pressure, ignorance….
“We are more than the worse thing we have suffered. We are more than what our ancestors survived.
“Our ancestors do not want us to be functional. Our ancestors want us to be free.”
The drummers were phenomenal, and the section of the program open to reflections was filled with song, poetry, dance and prayers. A special treat was “Amkara Music” by Karamo Susso and Amina Janta, who will perform at Bissap Baobab in San Francisco on Oct. 20.
Join us for a Zoom dialogue on adrienne maree brown’s article, “Murmations: Love Looks Like Accountability” (Yes! Magazine, 7/25/22): Sunday, Nov. 10, 2-4 pm PT. Register in advance: MaafaSFBayArea.com, 510-397-9705. Here is the MAAFA 2024 program (https://qr1.be/CPFI).