San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Mural lauds Oscar Grant in Fruitvale
Chants of “I am Oscar Grant” drowned out the humming of passing BART trains and the clanking of a nearby construction site Saturday as more than 100 people gathered at Fruitvale Station to unveil a mural memorializing the unarmed man shot to death by a BART police officer on the platform 10 years ago.
On the other side of chain link fence, just west of the station now bearing Grant’s smiling face, is a green street sign declaring the side street Oscar Grant III Way. People wearing T-shirts with Grant’s face on the front and back snapped their fingers, closed their eyes and leaned on each other as pastors and Oakland City Council members read prayers and acknowledged the mural’s significance to Grant’s family and to communities of color in the Bay Area. Former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle shot Grant, 22, in the back while he was pinned down by another officer in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2009. Mehserle said that he mistook his firearm for his Taser and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He spent a year in jail.
Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, took the elevated stage below the train platform, the mural of her son donning a black beanie in front of a backdrop of the Bay Bridge just behind her left shoulder.
“The unveiling speaks to me and lets me know that Oscar did not die in vain, but he died for a purpose,” Johnson told the nodding crowd. “He died so that we could come together in this spot and forever come to this place. I believe that there will be a sense of peace in this place, there will be a sense of healing in this place, and there will be a sense of love in this place.”
Tatiana, Grant’s nowteenage daughter, stood between Johnson and Cephus Johnson — Grant’s uncle and now known by the community as “Uncle Bobby” — in silence on the stage. At times she hid her head behind Cephus Johnson’s shoulder, ultimately deciding against joining her relatives in a speech.
“She thanks the community for loving her daddy. Through her daddy, she felt that you love her,” Cephus Johnson said, just as Tatiana stepped quietly off the stage to applause from the crowd. “As you can see, she’s still not ready to take the mike, but she will be soon.”
Speakers included civil rights attorney John Burris, community activist and civil rights advocate Cat Brooks, local pastor Tommy Smith, and Oakland City Councilwomen Rebecca Kaplan and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.
Gibson McElhaney, whose own son, Victor McElhaney, 21, was fatally shot in Los Angeles just three months ago, took the stage to share her thoughts on the mural. Victor was 11 when Grant was killed.
“We are celebrating a tremendous win of civic resistance, resilience and love to bring Oscar’s face to this plaza with the dove of peace, to name this street after our son Oscar, so that people will remember that our babies matter, too,” she said, fighting back tears. “It’s about Oscar, but it’s about all of the Oscars ... and all of our babies that are here and to come, because all we really want to do is be free.”
She pointed to three bracelets hanging on her wrist that read, “Stop killing our kids,” “I love being black,” and “Black Lives Matter,” and told the crowd to carry the sentiments of the bracelets in their communities.
Cephus Johnson, dressed all in white with an image of Africa hanging from a beaded necklace around his neck, his nephew’s face emblazoned on his back
and chest, took the stage and asked the crowd to “say his name” multiple times, asking them to scream louder — “Oscar Grant.”
“There is no horror compared to police deadly force that kills your loved one,” Johnson said. He repeatedly paused to collect his thoughts in silence. “When we go back in time for me, it reopens the wound. The power of the police to use deadly force must be guided by sensible legislation that helps safeguard human life as well as protects human rights. There is a way to do that.”
Johnson said Grant’s killing and his family’s subsequent civil rights actions rippled throughout the United States, guiding other families affected by fatal police shootings on how to organize communities in calling for reforms to law enforcement use-offorce policies.
“It does not stop today just because we got the mural. It does not stop today just because Oscar Grant Way, the street,” he said. “It does not stop today just because we have shown up today to recognize the achievement that we have made in the last 10 years.”
Grant’s family still hopes to rename Fruitvale Station after Grant.
Lauren Hernández is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren. hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LaurenPorFavor