![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/EDWFR1kP.jpg\" "\\"Activists")
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Oakland, CA \u2013 On June 19, hundreds of Black Oaklanders gathered around Lake Merritt for an annual Juneteenth celebration. The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression put out a call for a day of action to \u201cDefend families impacted by police crimes,\u201d which led the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Pollical Repression to take action.<\/p>\n
The Oakland Alliance talked to community members about Jalani Lovett, an Oakland native whose violent death in LA Men\u2019s Central Jail was covered up. They gathered mailing list sign-ups, petition signatures, and GoFundMe donations to reopen his case.<\/p>\n
While Oakland’s Juneteenth celebrations are normally jubilant and carefree, there was a notable shift in turnout and spirit from previous festivities. A shooting two years ago on Juneteenth gave justification for the Oakland Police Department (OPD) to clamp down. Fences and shut down streets were used to discourage Black people from gathering in large crowds. But the activists mobilized anyway, flyering in response to racist harassment and treatment by OPD. A leaflet read, \u201cThis Juneteenth: Fight back against police brutality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amped-up police presence at Black celebrations in Oakland is not new. Recent controversies with violence after monthly \u201cFirst Friday\u201d festivals in Oakland\u2019s downtown district were met with racist rhetoric against Black people organizing celebrations that draw the \u201cwrong crowd.\u201d This June\u2019s First Friday theme, \u201cBlack In Oakland,\u201d drew vendors, performers and dozens of Black residents. Several hours after the event had ended, youth were seen getting rowdy and fighting, and, instead of de-escalating the situation, videos showed OPD tackling and tear-gassing Black children.<\/p>\n
The emphasis on police presence is because the perception of Oakland as a Black, crime-ridden city, despite violent crime dropping nearly 30%, hurts the bottom line of property owners and downtown developers. It\u2019s why Kaiser Permanente and PG&E spent nearly a million dollars to reinstate the city’s police cadet program. This is not so different from what prompted Mayor Jerry Brown, elected in 1999, to begin using police to \u201cclean up\u201d downtown and make space for luxury projects. He got rid of the city\u2019s first Black police chief, put a narcotics officer in, and unleashed police to attack low-income Black and brown residents.<\/p>\n
Members of the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression believe that the struggle between African-Americans and OPD will continue to sharpen. They want to remain prepared by meeting the people where they are and building a rapport with them as a police-crime-fighting organization.<\/p>\n
#OaklandCA<\/a> #CA<\/a> #Juneteenth<\/a> #OppressedNationalities<\/a> #InjusticeSystem<\/a> #NAARPR<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland, CA \u2013 On June 19, hundreds of Black Oaklanders gathered around Lake Merritt for an annual Juneteenth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-375390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}