(NY Times) Hundreds in Oakland Turn Out to BBQ While Black [View all]

[underpants]

They arrived with chicken, sausages and bowls of macaroni salad. D.J.s played hip-hop and 80s hits. Even the fire marshal showed up, as well as police officers who waved hello to passers-by and guided traffic.

What once was a grand tradition in Oakland — a party at Lake Merritt along a placid stretch of the San Francisco Bay — had new life on Sunday, as locals gathered for a picnic called “BBQing While Black.”

“It was epic,” Logan Cortez, an Oakland schoolteacher and an organizer of the event, said. “It was a sea of love and blackness and food and fun.”

Ms. Cortez said she saw the video and wasn’t surprised, given what she described as systemic racism in the town she grew up in. So, she sent a message to a few friends asking them to meet her at Lake Merritt for a barbecue.

“I wanted to deal with my lack of shock,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/oakland-bbq-while-black.html