Arts and Culture
Vallejo Holiday Concert Features Vocalist DeAnne Brewer, Bassist Tony Saunders
DeAnne Brewer’s schedule is usually filled with singing functions in the Bay Area at churches, weddings, banquets, conventions or other civic events. However, in the current pandemic era, Brewer takes no performance opportunity for granted and while reflecting, gives thanks for her musical journey.
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By Carla Thomas
“It’s That Time Again,” a gospel and smooth jazz concert will be held at the Empress Theater in Vallejo on Saturday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m.
DeAnne Brewer, a singer/songwriter and pianist will be joined by Emmy Award-winning bassist, composer and producer, Tony Saunders, keyboardist Gail Johnson, and jazz saxophonist and flutist, Paula Atherton.
“Guests should be prepared to hear Christmas songs meant to inspire and uplift our spirits,” Brewer said.
Brewer’s schedule is usually filled with singing functions in the Bay Area at churches, weddings, banquets, conventions or other civic events. However, in the current pandemic era, Brewer takes no performance opportunity for granted and while reflecting, gives thanks for her musical journey.
As a child, Brewer performed for her family and family events. The daughter of a minister father and educator mother, Brewer was encouraged to pursue her musical endeavors. Growing up in New York, Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana and California, Brewer continued to develop her musical abilities as a singer and songwriter in the making. In Ohio, Brewer learned from fellow classmates Lawanda Maupin and Mark Gordon who were part of the group Levert.
After obtaining a degree in communications, Brewer explored the world of broadcasting and studied music with more opportunities to sing with Mark Kibble, Claude McKnight and Mervyn Warren of Take 6.
As a gospel radio host in New Orleans even more doors opened for her to sing with BASIC, The Raymond Myles Singers, The Moses Hogan Chorale, Word of Comfort, and the Brewer Sisters.
“It’s also been an honor to share the stage with gospel icons Tramaine Hawkins, Bebe and CeCe Winans, Daryl Coley, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Donald Lawrence, and Tonex,” said Brewer. “I’ve enjoyed performing with mainstream artists Howard Hewitt, Miki Howard, Levert and the O’Jays.” Having performed in the Bahamas, Canada, and Italy, Brewer says she wants to see the world healed one song at a time.
Bassist, producer, and son of the legendary Bay Area keyboardist Merl Saunders, Tony Saunders says guests at the upcoming concert are “in for a treat. This pandemic has really challenged us in the music world, but we will continue to produce great music and performances to wow our audiences.”
Saunders’ life has been infused with one musical adventure after another. At 14, he earned the first of his two Emmy’s for collaborating with his dad on the PBS documentary “Soul Is” and by 17, he was playing with Merl and the late Jerry Garcia on their collaborative projects. The second Emmy was earned for his contribution on the TV show, “Digital Journey,” in the episode on China’s new digital economy.
Though he took one of his first musical lessons on piano from Herbie Hancock, the bass he received from John Fogerty’s brother Tom — and watching recording sessions with famed bassists Anthony Davis and Lee Miles — greatly influenced him. Saunders is now a major force in contemporary jazz. “The bass seemed to spark a lifelong passion,” Saunders said. “I have now romanced my bass guitar for 50 years and [I’m] loving every minute of it.”
For tickets, visit: www.TicketFairy.com
Activism
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Lateefah Simon to Speak at Elihu Harris Lecture Series
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.
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By Scott Horton
United States House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-8) will be a speaker at the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series on Friday, Feb. 21.
The event will be held at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, 10 Tenth Street in Oakland, at 7 p.m.
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.
The overarching goal of the lecture series is to provide speakers from diverse backgrounds a platform to offer their answers to Dr. King’s urgent question, which is also the title of Jeffries’ latest book: “Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?”
In addition to Jeffries, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) will also speak.
“Certainly, now is a time for humanity, in general, and Americans in particular to honestly and genuinely answer Dr. King’s question,” said Dr. Roy D. Wilson, Executive Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Executive Producer of the lecture series.
“Dr. King teaches that time is neutral but not static. Like the water in a river, it arrives and then quickly moves on,” continued Wilson. “We must urgently create conditions for listening to many different answers to this vital question, and generate the development of unity of action among all those who struggle for a stronger democracy.”
In his book, Jeffries shares his experience of being unanimously elected by his colleagues as the first African American in history to ever hold the position of House Minority Leader.
In January 2023 in Washington, Jeffries made his first official speech as House Minority Leader. He affirmed Democratic values one letter of the alphabet at a time. His words and how he framed them as the alphabet caught the attention of Americans, and the speech was later turned into a book, The ABCs of Democracy, bringing Congressman Jeffries rousing speech to vivid, colorful life, including illustrations by Shaniya Carrington. The speech and book are inspiring and urgent as a timeless reminder of what it means to be a country with equal opportunities for all. Jeffries paints a road map for a brighter American future and warns of the perils of taking a different path.
Before his colleagues unanimously elected him Minority Leader in 2022, Jeffries previously served as Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and as an Impeachment Manager during the first Senate trial of the 45th President of the United States.
Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights, grew up in the Cornerstone Baptist Church and he is a product of New York City’s public school system, graduating from Midwood High School. Jefferies went on to Binghamton University (BA), Georgetown University (master’s in public policy) and New York University (JD).
He served in the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012.
Admission is free for the Feb. 21 Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series featuring Congressman Jeffries. Please reserve seats by calling the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center at (510) 434-3988.
Signed copies of his book will be available for purchase at the event.
Activism
McClymonds High Names School Gym for Star Graduate, Basketball Legend Bill Russell
William “Bill” Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, and died on July 31, 2022. He achieved fame as a U.S. professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. He was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won 11 NBA championships during his 13-year career.
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By Ken Epstein
West Oakland’s McClymonds High School, “the School of Champions,” this week named the school’s gymnasium in honor of one of its most famous graduates, basketball legend Bill Russell (class of ’52).
William “Bill” Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, and died on July 31, 2022. He achieved fame as a U.S. professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. He was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won 11 NBA championships during his 13-year career.
Russell is widely known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civil honor, from President Barack Obama for Russell’s contributions to basketball and the Civil Rights Movement.
The McClymonds’ naming ceremony was held on Wednesday, the same day as Russell’s birthday. Oakland leader Bill Patterson, a longtime friend of Russell’s, was scheduled to cut the ribbon at the reopening of the gym, which had been closed for several months for renovation. Russell’s daughter Karen was scheduled to attend the ribbon cutting.
Russell’s name and signature are now printed on the gymnasium floor.
Patterson was working at DeFremery Park when he met Russell. “I befriended him as a boy and during his years at University of San Francisco” said Patterson. “We stayed friends for the rest of his life.”
Said McClymonds Principal Darielle Davis, herself a McClymonds graduate, “We are excited to honor Bill Russell for his sports accolades and because he broke color barriers. He is part of our legacy, and legacy is really important at McClymonds.”
Brian McGhee, community schools manager at McClymonds and former football player at UC Berkeley, said that Russell meant a lot to him and others at the school. “He was a beacon of light and hope for West Oakland,” he said. “He did a lot for sports and for civil rights.”
Starting in 2018, Ben “Coach” Tapscott worked with Patterson and other McClymonds grads, community members, and former coaches to encourage the Oakland Board of Education to endorse the naming of the school gym, which finally happened recently.
“We worked hard to make this happen,” said Tapscott. “He’s an important part of McClymond’s history, along with a lot of other famous graduates,” he said.
Activism
Retired Bay Area Journalist Finds Success in Paris with Black History Tours
In the late 90s, Stevenson finally realized her dream of living in Paris, now with her daughter. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend gave her a stack of cash and encouraged her to expand on the knowledge that she had only started to share with people she knew.
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By Post Staff
There were two things Oakland-born, East Palo Alto-raised Ricki Stevenson always dreamed of:
- Going to New York as a newscaster to tell the true story of Blacks in America.
- Living and working in Paris one day.
Her dreams of life in Paris began when she was three years old and her mother, a former professional dancer, took her to see Josephine Baker perform. She was 11 when her parents took her to the Stanford University campus to meet James Baldwin, who was speaking about his book, “The Fire Next Time.” Ricki says that’s when she knew she’d one day live in Paris, “the city of light!”
But before that would ever happen, she had a tumultuous career as a newscaster across the country that was inspired by her family’s history.
Stevenson recalls marching with Cesar Chavez as he fought for labor rights for farm workers in California.
“Are we Mexican too?” she asked her parents. “No, but we will fight for everyone’s human rights,” they responded to her.
Ironically, Ricki’s paternal family roots went back to Greenwood, Oklahoma, infamous for the 1921 bombing of Black Wall Street. A time when Black people had oil wells, banks, and a thriving business community.
This background would propel her into a 25-year journalism career that gave her the opportunity to interview greats like President Jimmy Carter, PLO leader Yassir Arafat, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Miriam Makeba, and the leaders of South African liberation movements.
A job offer from KCBS radio brought her back to the Bay Area in the 1980s. Then came the switch to TV when she was hired as a Silicon Valley business reporter with KSTS TV, working at the first Black-owned television station in northern CA (created and owned by John Douglas). Along the way, Stevenson worked as an entertainment reporter with BET; coproduced, with her disc jockey brother Isaac, a Bay Area show called “Magic Number Video;” lived in Saudi Arabia; worked as an international travel reporter with News Travel Network; and worked at KRON TV a news anchor and talk show host.
In 1997, Stevenson realized her dream of living in Paris with her young daughter, Dedie. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend, Admiral Robert Toney put a chunk of money in her hand. He said, “Ricki, my wife and I have been coming to Paris for 20 years, but in just two days with you and Dedie, we’ve learned and seen more than we ever did before.”
Years after BPT took off, Ricki met Nawo Carol Crawford and Miguel Overton Guerra, who she recruited as senior scholar guides for Black Paris Tours.
Guerra says he is proud of his work with Black Paris Tours in that it provides a wealth of information about the rich legacy of African and African American history and influence in Paris and Europe.
“I tend to have a feeling for history always being a means of a reference point backwards … you start to understand the history, that it isn’t just the United States, that it began with African people,” Guerra says.
He said that it’s been a pleasure to watch people learn something they didn’t know before and to take them through the city to key points in Black history, like hangout spots for writers like Baldwin and Richard Wright, restaurants in the busiest parts of Paris, the home of Josephine Baker and so much more.
Although the tours are open to all, Guerra hopes that those of African descent from all over the world can embrace that they don’t have to just stay where they are because movies and media have portrayed cities like Paris to be only white, it’s multicultural and accepting to all.
“We’ve been here, and we’ve been there, going way back when. And we shouldn’t be considered or consider ourselves to be strangers in any place that we go to,” he said.
Stevenson notes they’ve had 150,000 people take their tour over the years, with notables like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Smokey Robinson, Steve Harvey, Miriam Makeba, and more.
Friends and former media colleagues of Stevenson compliment the BPT crew on their knowledge of the city and their ability to always keep it interesting.
“He [Guerra] just had a deep, deep wealth of knowledge and he was constantly supplanting information with historical facts and the like. I love that it was demonstrating and showing how Black people have thrived in Paris or contributed to the culture in Paris,” Candice Francis said.
She toured in the summer of 2022 and stated that in the two weeks that they visited Paris, BPT was the highlight of her trip. She shared that she was proud of Stevenson and the life she’d managed to manifest and build for herself.
“Even if you’re visiting Paris for the tenth time, if you haven’t taken the tour, then by all means, take it,” Francis emphasized.
Magaly Muñoz, Gay Plair and Paul Cobb also contributed to this story. You can book your own adventure with Black Paris Tours at www.blackparistour.com.
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