Bay Area

‘Freedom Movement – a Musical’ Depicts The Mississippi ‘Freedom Summer’ of 1964

Published

6 years ago

March 19, 2020

In 1964, “Freedom Summer” or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a voter registration drive aimed to increase the number of Black voters in Mississippi.

On Feb. 8th, “Freedom Movement – A Musical”, was performed at the Cornerstone Community Church in Marin City as a fundraiser for the Hannah Freedom School. It brought the audience back to 1964 when racism in the South was intense, and the civil rights movement was active in Mississippi.

Bettie Hodges Shelmire, Executive Director of the Hannah Freedom School, says that the school’s genesis came from the Civil Rights Movement in the Mississippi Summer of 1964.

Racial violence against Blacks was intense, as Blacks were not only lynched but many Black churches and homes in Birmingham, Alabama, were bombed, including the 16th Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963, where four girls were killed and several other people were injured.

Only 6.7 percent of eligible blacks were registered to vote in Mississippi in 1964. In response, Congress began to pass important new civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Shelmire says that less than 5% of Black people in the South voted, even though they were given the right to vote by the 15th amendment.

Approximately 800 mostly white volunteers, originating from the then Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, joined the African Americans in Mississippi to fight against voter intimidation and discrimination at the polls. The Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized the movement.

The volunteers started Freedom Schools to counter “sharecropper education” received by the Black people and poor whites, who through reading, writing and arithmetic, history and civics, could learn to participate in the voting process.

Freedom Schools were eventually adopted by Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). According to childrendefense.org, Edelman advocated for disadvantaged Americans her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families. The CDF’s Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

There are 185 CDF Freedom Schools, which include the Hannah Freedom School in Marin City.

The office address for the Hannah Freedom School is 825 Drake Avenue, Marin City, CA 94965. Their mailing address is 3001 Bridgeway, #422, Sausalito, CA 94965. For more information, please call (415) 887-9740.

Godfrey Lee

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

2 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Chase Oakland Community Center Hosts Alley-Oop Accelerator Building Community and Opportunity for Bay Area Entrepreneurs

Over the past three years, the Alley-Oop Accelerator has helped more than 20 Bay Area businesses grow, connect, and gain meaningful exposure. The program combines hands-on training, mentorship, and community-building to help participants navigate the legal, financial, and marketing challenges of small business ownership.

Published

1 week ago

February 21, 2026

Oakland Post

Bay Area entrepreneurs attend the Alley-Oop Accelerator, a small business incubation program at Chase Oakland Community Center. Photo by Carla Thomas.

By Carla Thomas

The Golden State Warriors and Chase bank hosted the third annual Alley-Oop Accelerator this month, an empowering eight-week program designed to help Bay Area entrepreneurs bring their visions for business to life.

The initiative kicked off on Feb. 12 at Chase’s Oakland Community Center on Broadway Street, welcoming 15 small business owners who joined a growing network of local innovators working to strengthen the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

At its core, the accelerator is designed to create an ecosystem of collaboration, where local entrepreneurs can learn from one another while accessing the resources of a global financial institution.

“This is our third year in a row working with the Golden State Warriors on the Alley-Oop Accelerator,” said Jaime Garcia, executive director of Chase’s Coaching for Impact team for the West Division. “We’ve already had 20-plus businesses graduate from the program, and we have 15 enrolled this year. The biggest thing about the program is really the community that’s built amongst the business owners — plus the exposure they’re able to get through Chase and the Golden State Warriors.”

According to Garcia, several graduates have gone on to receive vendor contracts with the Warriors and have gained broader recognition through collaborations with JPMorgan Chase.

“A lot of what Chase is trying to do,” Garcia added, “is bring businesses together because what they’ve asked for is an ecosystem, a network where they can connect, grow, and thrive organically.”

This year’s Alley-Oop Accelerator reflects that vision through its comprehensive curriculum and emphasis on practical learning. Participants explore the full spectrum of business essentials including financial management, marketing strategy, and legal compliance, while also preparing for real-world experiences such as pop-up market events.

Each entrepreneur benefits from one-on-one mentoring sessions through Chase’s Coaching for Impact program, which provides complimentary, personalized business consulting.

Garcia described the impact this hands-on approach has had on local small business owners. He recalled one candlemaker, who, after participating in the program, was invited to provide candles as gifts at Chase events.

“We were able to help give that business exposure,” he explained. “But then our team also worked with them on how to access capital to buy inventory and manage operations once those orders started coming in. It’s about preparation. When a hiccup happens, are you ready to handle it?”

The Coaching for Impact initiative, which launched in 2020 in just four cities, has since expanded to 46 nationwide.

“Every business is different,” Garcia said. “That’s why personal coaching matters so much. It’s life-changing.”

Participants in the 2026 program will each receive a $2,500 stipend, funding that Garcia said can make an outsized difference. “It’s amazing what some people can do with just $2,500,” he noted. “It sounds small, but it goes a long way when you have a plan for how to use it.”

For Chase and the Warriors, the Alley-Oop Accelerator represents more than an educational initiative, it’s a pathway to empowerment and economic inclusion. The program continues to foster lasting relationships among the entrepreneurs who, as Garcia put it, “build each other up” through shared growth and opportunity.

“Starting a business is never easy, but with the right support, it becomes possible, and even exhilarating,” said Oscar Lopez, the senior business consultant for Chase in Oakland.