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A DECADE of TURMOIL and TRIUMPH in OAKLAND:
A thriving and eclectic public charter arts school lives through #Occupy, #Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Trump, EnRon fall-out, Marriage Equality (finally), Gentrification, the Great Crash of 2008, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Saunders, Islamophobia, Elections with Ranked Choice Voting, Bill Cosby — has any generation experienced this type of massive social dysfunction? ……………
by Donn K. Harris, former Director of the Oakland School for the Arts
Special note: 21 year-old Victor McElhaney, a graduate of the school profiled here, was attending USC in Los Angeles in March of 2019, a senior in the music department. On an early morning food run with some friends near campus, he was the victim of a gunshot wound in a robbery and died later that morning. This piece is dedicated to Victor, the very picture of the creative and diligent arts school student. This small gesture is one more way of ensuring Victor will be remembered. Victor received his high school diploma in June 2015 on the stage of The Fox Oakland Theater, and along with music department chair Nick Kanozik and jazz faculty Dave Ellis I am honored to have been part of that ceremony, and to have called Victor a friend.
