Bay Area

Vallejo’s NAACP Branch Sponsors Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March

Published

5 years ago

January 16, 2020

Rachelle Jackson, 1st Vice President of Vallejo’s NAACP Branch, literally “talks-the-talk and will walk-the-walk”, literally, when she and hundreds of other Vallejo residents participate in the Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March on Jan. 20, 2020, at 9:00 a.m.

The event, to be followed by a program at Hogan Middle School, 850 Rosewood Dr., Vallejo, at 10:30 a.m., is sponsored by the NAACP’s Vallejo Branch, the City of Vallejo, Valero Oil Refinery, the Vallejo Times Herald and the Vallejo Unified School District.

“This is the 32nd year that we’ve held this event,” said Jackson. “It’s an awareness event, while also one that honors the achievements of Dr. King, as well as bringing our communities together. It’s the perfect opportunity to bring different groups together throughout the region.

“Since our first event when nearly 100 participants attended, we’ve grown larger every year,” Jackson continued. “We anticipate upwards of 500 individuals to gather together this year. However, that will depend on the weather. If we have discouraging weather, we will immediately proceed with our program without the march.”

Jimmie Jackson, president of the NAACP Vallejo Branch, noted that it’s all about unification.

“This is what Dr. King’s message was all about, bringing people together rather than having them wander apart,” Jackson said.

“Our program will include comments by city, county and state officials, including City Councilmember Hakeem Brown and congressional representative, Mike Thompson,” said Jackson. “Our keynote speaker will be Bishop Kevin Barnes from Abyssinian Baptist Church and the program will feature performances by Vallejo youth, a community gospel choir and an activity by Vallejo’s local fraternities.”

The Vallejo Branch continues to coordinate activities in the community. The Branch recently received the prestigious Dr. H. Claude Hudson Award at the 32nd Annual California-Hawaii NAACP State Convention in Los Angeles.

“The Dr. H. Claude Hudson Award has been around for 20 years,” Jackson said. “It honors Hudson, former president of the Los Angeles NAACP branch from 1924-1934. He was a prominent businessman and advocate for civil rights.”

Hudson’s early work with the Los Angeles NAACP helped to inspire other branches to realize that with hard work, “you can get stuff done. It’s a matter of working with the community and not against the community,” Jackson said. Hudson died in 1989 at age 102.

“Never has the Vallejo branch of the NAACP taken home an honor as the ‘most efficient and proficient’ branch at its annual ceremony. We were in competition with all the branches in California and Hawaii, and Vallejo won in the “medium” category for branches with memberships between 100 and 500 people.”

Jackson pointed out that Vallejo was up against 42 other medium-sized branches, believing the local branch earned the honor for being “most efficient … having ongoing programs. “We try to do what we do,” said Mr. Jackson. “We’re usually having some big event every four months.”

“It’s good, professional competition,” he added. “It shows how creative we can be as far as getting the work done that needs to be done in the communit. We are a community-based organization that believes in trying to bring the community together.”

The NAACP is the nation’s oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its mission is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.

For more information on Vallejo’s NAACP Branch and its programs, call 707-554-4993.

By Clifford L. Williams

Posts by By Clifford L. Williams

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

2 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

1 week ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.