Richmond’s former prisoners get out the vote

This year, California had the largest number of people registered to vote in the state’s history, with nearly 20 million ready to hit today’s polls. Formerly incarcerated people in Richmond, some of whom are voting for the first time, helped the state reach that record. In the lead up to the election, organizations across the…

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‘The War at Home’ debuts in Richmond

A scene from the Richmond theater production The War at Home with actors Michele Wells (left), Derek Odom (center), and Maurice Nunn (right). (Photo by Brittany Kirstin)

As a high school theater student, Michelle Wells was told that there was no place for the type of stories she wanted to tell. So she left her hometown and traveled around the world. Now, back home in Richmond, she seems to have found both her voice and her audience.

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City Council Election 2012: Nat Bates

In the summer of 1975, Richmond Councilman Nat Bates received a call from Ben Brown, a Democratic campaign organizer in Atlanta. Brown needed Bates’ support rallying African American voters behind his candidate, Jimmy Carter, a little known peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia who had just finished his term as governor and was seeking the Democratic…

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Budget cuts cut court interpreters

After the Contra Costa Superior Court decided last month to adopt a plan that cuts $7 million from its annual budget, it will no longer pay for interpreters in domestic violence cases beyond this fall.

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Fred Jackson, North Richmond leader, dead at 73

fred jackson with gayle mclaughlin

As odes from well-wishers flow from Washington D.C. to the Bay Area, North Richmond mourns one of its greatest products. Fred Jackson was born in rural Mississippi and came to the Bay Area in 1950. Over the next 61 years, he would establish a reputation as one of the region’s most consistent humanitarians and community leaders, amassing an innumerable collection of accolades and commendations along the way.

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Freedom Bus rolls into Kennedy High

John F. Kennedy High School students, parents and teachers got a first-person history of the Freedom Rides when Alameda Contra Costa Transit District’s Freedom Bus rolled up at the school Thursday. The presentation took place at an open house for Kennedy High parents.

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