Black History

Robert L. Allen, 82, Leaves Legacy of Civil Rights Activism and Scholarship

Robert L. Allen, historian scholar, and civil rights activist, died on July 10 at 82. One of his important works, “The Port Chicago Mutiny,” played a significant role in the struggle that ultimately led to the exoneration this month of the African American sailors who were convicted of mutiny during World War II for going on strike following a deadly munitions explosion that claimed the lives of hundreds.

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Robert L. Allen. Courtesy of U.S. Naval Institute

By Ken Epstein

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 29, 1942, Allen learned at an early age about social responsibility from his parents, who were community activists, developing a lifelong commitment to social justice.

Allen was 13 when Emmett Till, who was 14 when he was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. “This s when I realized that the white people were not only dangerous, but they were dangerous to all of us, including me, because he was my age,” Allen said in an interview quoted in the New York Times.

He graduated from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1963, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He earned a Ph.D. in sociology in 1983 from the University of California. He doctoral research on racial dynamics within labor movements laid the basis of some his later work.

Dr. Allen served as a professor and chair of the ethnic studies department at Mills College in Oakland. In 1994, he was hired as a professor of ethnic student and African American studies at UC Berkeley.

Allen’s book, “The Port Chicago Mutiny” was published in 1989, thoroughly researching the 1944 explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in the San Francisco Bay Area, which killed 320 men, most of whom were African American. The book documented the strike of the surviving African American sailors against hazardous and segregated working conditions, and the Navy’s subsequent harsh punishment of the sailors, exposing racial discrimination in the military and society at large.

Allen brought to light this buried history and advocated for justice for the Port Chicago 50, who after 80 years were finally exonerated by the Secretary of the Navy on July 17, 2024, shortly after Allen died.

His research focused on the systemic roots of oppression and examined the interconnected struggles of marginalized communities. His books included:

“Black Awakening in Capitalist America: An Analytic History” (1969),
which examines the rise of Black Power movements and the economic conditions that impacted them;

“Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States” (1974), which analyzes the history of social reform movements in the U.S. and their contradictory approach to racial justice;

“Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America” (1996).
Co-authored with Herb Boyd, these are essays and stories exploring the experiences faced by African American men throughout history. The book delves into various aspects of the Black male experience in America.

“The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: C.L. Dellums and the Fight for Fair Treatment and Civil Right.” This book delves into the history of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the role of C.L. Dellums in the fight for civil rights and labor equality.

Dr. Allen was also senior editor and writer for The Black Scholar journal and co-founded the small press, Wild Trees Press, with Alice Walker, with whom he was in a relationship at the time.

Allen is survived by his wife Zelia Bora; son, Casey Allen; sisters, Damaris Kirschhofer, Teresa Coughanour, and Rebecca Allen; and three grandchildren.

Yulie Padmore, executive director of a group called the Port Chicago Alliance, gave Allen credit for his steadfast work for justice for the Black sailors.

“Without his work, we wouldn’t know what we know today,” she said in an interview with the New York Times. “We wouldn’t be here without him talking to the men and hearing what they wanted to say all along.”

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Art

After 10-Year Wait, Fillmore Heritage Center Reopens in San Francisco

After serving as the economic and cultural hub of the Fillmore’s historically Black community for more than a decade, the center’s closure ended what was called the “Rebirth of the Cool,” referring to the neighborhood’s role during the height of Black Jazz in the United States.

Published

14 hours ago

June 10, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Rev. Amos Brown of Third Baptist Church addresses community members at the Fillmore Heritage Center ribbon cutting. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington, Special to The Post

Last Saturday morning, the cloudy skies cleared just as the highly anticipated ribbon-cutting ceremony began, marking the reopening of the Fillmore Heritage Center at 1330 Fillmore and Eddy.

The complex – which had once included Yoshi’s Jazz Club, the Lush Life Art Gallery, the Koret Heritage Lobby, a 54-seat microcinema, and the Black-owned 1300 On Fillmore restaurant – shuttered in 2015.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announcing the reopening of the Fillmore Heritage Center. Erika Scott, owner of Honey Art Studio, looks on with pride. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

“The Fillmore is the most important neighborhood in San Francisco’s history for centering Black culture, music, business, and community, and has shaped this City and influenced the entire country,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to the gathering of more than 100 community leaders, business owners, and public officials. “This building reflects the deep roots of the Fillmore. Urban renewal left deep scars that are still felt today. This Center celebrates a strong Black community that continues to shape San Francisco. I am proud to join the community as we reopen the Fillmore Heritage Center.”

Although the previous stakeholders will not be returning to the center, spaces are available for nonprofit organizations and ventures, such as Fillmore native Ericka Johnson’s Honey Art Studio.

“This Center will be an economic engine and a thriving venue that shines a light on the Black-owned businesses in this neighborhood and lifts the entire district,” Lurie continued. “Our City is committed to this community for the long term.”

“We’re excited to collaborate with the City to finally reopen these doors,” said Ken Johnson, a videographer and community leader who’d been lobbying for the reopening of the center. “It’s an opportunity to showcase the entrepreneurship and creative spirit of this ‘Harlem of the West’ and the ‘Rebirth of the Cool,’ grounded in our uniquely gifted Fillmore community.”

This month, through its Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city will begin renting the building’s noncommercial spaces for pop-up events celebrating local talent, arts, and entertainment primarily centered in the Fillmore.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

2 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.