by
Chauncey Bailey
Oct. 20, 1949 – Aug. 2, 2007
Chauncey Bailey, a well-known character among journalists and activists in the city, was a Detroit News reporter from 1982-92. Afterward, he returned home to Oakland, Calif., and eventually became editor of the Oakland Post. It was there he launched an investigation into corruption involving a crime syndicate linked to Your Black Muslim Bakery.
On Aug. 2, 2007, Bailey, 57, was executed on a street in downtown Oakland. Four years later, Yusuf Bey IV, the owner of Your Black Muslim Bakery and an associate Antoine Mackey were convicted of ordering Bailey's murder. A bakery handyman, Devaughndre Brousard, confessed to actually pulling the trigger.
Earlier this month, colleagues and friends gathered for the unveiling of a Chauncey Bailey Way street sign in downtown Oakland, KTVU news reports.
Former News reporter Lou Mleczko, ex-head of the Detroit Newspaper Guild, writes on Facebook:
Chauncey was an intense, tough reporter while at The Detroit News. I remember him, on his off time, standing outside in the bitter cold playing excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" on MLK Day and urging staffers to join him, even for a few minutes.
It was a horrendous crime when he was murdered in Oakland. I am glad at least the perpetrators of that crime were eventually brought to justice.
Justin Ray of the Los Angeles Times writes this week:
His name is one that every resident of the state should know, both because of the impact he had on California, and also because of the dramatic circumstances that led to his death. ...
Bailey was known as a brave journalist who would ask the first question at press conferences, according to Oaklandside. He wasn’t afraid of asking officials tough, pointed inquiries. He was also part of a generation of Black journalists who experienced both Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, and brought that knowledge to newsrooms.
