First Friday resumed peacefully last weekend with appeals to end violence in Oakland and moments of silence to commemorate the the fatal shooting of Kiante Campbell, an 18-year-old Oakland high school student at February's street fest.
I like the straightforward tone set by newly-elected Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who stood on a stage and called out: "If you love Oakland, thrown your peace signs up."
Oaklanders, including Mayor Jean Quan, wore green and white shirts that read "Respect Our City". The street festival, which draws thousands to its mix of food, music and arts and crafts, resumed in a smaller area with a shortened time format after the shooting that left one dead and three wounded last month.
Some elected officials still ask if Oakland is focusing its limited police resources at the right issues - directing traffic around the First Friday crowds in Uptown rather keeping the peace in some of Oakland's more crime-ridden neighborhoods.
It's not an easy question to answer. First Friday and the Art Murmur movement that organized the monthly open houses for galleries and clothing stores between Broadway and Telegraph Avenues from 19th to 25th Streets had grown from strength to strength, drawing Oaklanders and visitors from around the Bay.
The shooting erupted nearly an hour after the Feb. 1 street fest ended. An account in the Feb. 27 Chronicle still cannot pinpoint who shot Campbell, but he was one of three partiers who drew guns at each other at 20th and Telegraph, a few feet away from one of First Friday's most popular dessert vans that straddles that intersection.
For last week's First Friday, authorities shrank the area of the street fest to five blocks along Broadway and Telegraph,. curtailed the festivities to close by 9 pm, one hour earlier, and strictly enforced laws against drinking in the street.
"After what happened last month, we knew that we needed to change," a First Fridays spokesman said. "We had to look at how we were addressing this and recognize the gravity of it."
The Chronicle quoted a third generation East Oaklander, Lukas Brekke-Miesner, as saying, "We're not involved because violence happened at First Friday. We;re involved because this city has a violence problem."
Where First Fridays go remains to be seen. I want them to work, I want to take more friends to disabuse them of their bias about violence-prone Oakland. I guess it's up to all of us to make this effort.
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