Blog Posts

We are shocked and saddened by the unintentional tragedy that left a 13-year-old boy wounded at Madison Park Academy in East Oakland this week. Our hearts are with both children involved in this incident as well as their families and all the children, families and teachers impacted at the school. Violence of any kind is

By Staff Writer : Alexandria Azzar Nobody can emotionally prepare for the news of a mass shooting.  Although becoming increasingly common, this type of an act always feels shocking.  Almost like clockwork , we are then bombarded with news of the terror the victims faced, the fatalities that occured, and the details of that day.

By: BOP Staff writers, Desiree McSwain and Alex Azzar (Image Description: Patrick Lyoya holding up a photo of his son, the victim, Patrick Lyoya. Image Source: Anna Nichols, AP) Heartbreaking, infuriating… The list of emotions we are feeling in response to the cold blooded murder of Patrick Lyoya is exhaustive. There is absolutely no justification

By Staff Writer Alexandria Azzar “Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free. – Frederick Douglass  One of the most powerful ways to learn is to read. Books have the power

By Staff Writer Desiree McSwain (Image source: OkayAfrica) Right now as many of us sit back and witness from afar, the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to expand and envelop the citizens of Russia and Ukraine. We feel deeply saddened by the senseless violence that the innocent men, women, and children of both countries

  By: Staff Writer Desiree McSwain       To the community of OUSD, the School Board and Superintendent Johnson-Tramell,   It saddens us to witness our community face turmoil as we grapple with the reality that this school district is persistent in their attempts to push out Black students and families from Oakland public

Fires in Australia will have burned 14 times the area devastated in California’s 2018 wildfires. Many First Nation elders and Aborigine Australians native to the land have warned local authorities for years that mass wildfires in the bush were imminent. The Aboriginal elders also offered a solution: cultural burning. Methods of culture burning include the

By Staff Writer Steve McCutchen The Black Panther Party(BPP) closed its last remaining chapters and its flagship program, the Oakland Community School(OCS), in June, 1982. In the absence of the BPP and the vacuum of grassroots community organizing, several organizations and groups would eventually appear. Many of those groups had little or no impact on moving the Black community

By Staff Writers Mirishae McDonald, Jasmine Williams, and Jackie Byers  In 2016 BOP joined California Calls– an alliance of 31 community-based organizations across the state which purpose was to engage and educate voters from poor and working class communities of color.  Within the California Calls coalition the African American Civic Engagement Project (AACEP) was birthed,

Over the past 6 months we have had the joy of participating in the East Bay Community Foundation’s (EBCF) ASCEND:BLO Accelerator program. The BLO Accelerator was designed in order to create a well of resources and networks, to support Black-led organizations across the Bay Area to achieve their visions of justice, while also daring them

  By Staff Writer Jasmine Williams Responding to the need to engage Black voters in the electoral process in California, California Calls– an alliance of grassroots, community-based orgs across the state whose purpose is to “reclaim the California Dream of equality, opportunity and prosperity for all Californians,” birthed the African American CIvic Engagement Project (AACEP).