Press Conference Wednesday for Economic Development, Not Gentrification!

Press Conference: Economic Development,
Not Gentrification and Police Containment in Oakland

When: Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 12 noon
Where: Uhuru Furniture and Collectibles, 3742 Grand Ave, Oakland
Contact: Joel Hamburger, (510) 763-3342, http://www.apedf.org

In response to a vigilante approach by some Grand Lake neighborhood residents and businesses, the African People’s Education and Defense Fund along with a coalition of groups Colored Ink, the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, the African People’s Solidarity Committee and others will hold a press conference at Uhuru Furniture and Collectibles at 3742 Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Finding that the recent policing strategies target the African and Mexican communities, Uhuru Movement organizations and others believe that the answer is not a vigilante approach but economic solutions that benefit all of Oakland’s residents and that gentrification in Oakland, which destabilizes and further impoverishes those communities, must end.

Bakari Olatunji, local board member of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund states, “Some Grand Lake residents are concerned about people from East and West Oakland coming into their neighborhood. Everyone knows that East and West Oakland are the code words for “black!”

Continues Olatunji, “The Guardian Angels and increased police presence will exacerbate the problems for the African community, who face an unemployment rate that is almost 20% as compared to 8% for the city as a whole. 60% of households have a median income of less than $30,000. With the high costs of housing and with these efforts to put more of our young people in prison, we are being pushed out of the city. Oakland residents can not, on the one hand, care about diversity and on the other hand disregard the disparities in income, employment and conditions of life.”
Based on estimates from the U.S. Census, Oakland has lost between 18,000 to 34,800 African people since 2000. While Oakland for years was an historically majority black city through the height of the Black Power Movement, whites now slightly outnumber blacks in the city for the first time. This is the result of gentrification which has pushed impoverished African residents out of the city.
To put the problem into a larger context, California is now spending more money on prisons than on public education. In the U.S. as a whole, African people are 74% of all those sent to prison on drug related charges even though African people are only 15% of all drug users in the U.S.

The African People’s Education and Defense Fund is a non profit that addresses the disparities in economics, education and health in the black community. APEDF local programs include Uhuru Furniture and Collectibles, an economic development institution that brings in resources from the larger community to address the well being of African people. The Uhuru House African community center in East Oakland is an important institution of APEDF that provides meeting space for educational, political and cultural programs that benefit the African community. For more info, contact Joel Hamburger at 510-763-3342.