I was surprised to see a comment here from Bobby Seale, who stopped by (so to speak) to say that he is combining politics with a good time noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at the EastSide Arts Alliance, where he will barbecuing…with generous helpings of his barbeque’n sauce. Even legendary radical Black Panthers have to eat. The address is 2277 International Blvd.

 Part 3 about the weekend of Aug. 1, which I wrote about in the following blog entry because I was covering a Night Owl event that was intensely political and thought provoking. The entry turned out way too long for one post so I am breaking it into sections.
Aug 2: Culture plays a vital role in politics, said Mark Tribe, creator of the Port Huron Project, responsible for staging the Angela Davis speech.  Culture creates conditions for emancipation, autonomy and democracy, was the way he put it.
Tribe said the political climate – or lack thereof — at Brown University in 2005 when he began teaching led to the project. People seemed to feel resistance was futile.
I asked a woman at the Angela Davis speech recreation at DeFremery Park if she thought people were disillusioned and less active than the 1960s and 70s. “There is not as much opposition because you don’t see body bags,” said Annette Santos, a former Black Panther in the New York and Oakland branches. She was talking about the opposition to the Vietnam War, which spurred a generation to intense protest. In contrast, the Bush Administration has blocked images of U.S. soldiers’ caskets being shipped back to the United States from Iraq. No one was dying at the start of the war in Iraq, Santos said. “Wen they did, we didn’t hear about it.”
Media have been banned from covering the arrival of remains at Dover, according to a USA Today article.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Lower Bottoms’ impresario Marcel Diallo has been masterful about bringing Oakland’s past and present together. Little surprise then that he is behind the show “Black Panther: The Cultural Ministry of Emory Douglas” that opens Aug. 22 and runs until Sept. 26 at the Cannery, 1200 Pine St. “We have to have some white walls, sometimes,” Diallo said after Douglas, who served as the Panthers’ minister of culture from 1967 to the 1980s, spoke at the Oakland Museum a couple weeks ago. No pun intended (I commented the show was fancy) I assume, from Diallo, founder of the Black New World and Cornelia Bell’s Black Bottom Gallery, whose walls are not as boomer-style as the Cannery lofts.  So just to let you know in advance, an opening night reception will be held at the lofts, 1200 Pine St: A conversation with Emory Douglas, a performance by Diallo & Co. Pluse a special cultural presentation. Prints and books will be available. FMI: 510-451-4661.