Local News

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― More than 700 people attended a funeral service in Oakland Wednesday for slain journalist Chauncey Bailey, who was remembered as a hard-working, fearless and uncompromising reporter serving the city's black community.

The 57-year-old Oakland Post newspaper editor was gunned down in what police said was retaliation for his investigative reporting.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums gave an impassioned speech against violence at the funeral, while the publisher of the Post and others vowed that they would carry on Bailey's work.

"We see what happened to those who stand up for right and just and good," said Father Jay V. Matthews, pastor of St. Benedict Catholic Church in East Oakland.

Those responsible for Bailey's death may feel "that if we rid ourselves of Chauncey, we don't have to worry," he said. "Well, let me tell you, I'm sure I speak for the mayor and for all the leadership of this community, spiritually, politically, educationally: Be worried."

Bailey was ambushed last Thursday as he walked to work from his home near Lake Merrit to the Post's offices in downtown Oakland. Police later identified the shooting suspect as 19-year-old Devaughndre Broussard, a handyman at Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery, which had been the subject of a Bailey investigation.

On Tuesday, authorities filed murder charges against Broussard, saying he confessed that he killed Bailey because he was upset about stories the journalist had written. Police said they don't believe Broussard acted alone, but they are still investigating what happened. Broussard remained behind bars after making his first court appearance.

At the time of his death, Bailey had been working on a story looking into the bankruptcy filing of the bakery and associated businesses. But the story had not yet run because several details still needed verifying, Post officials said.

Publisher Paul Cobb drew a standing ovation from the packed church when he vowed, "The world will know what Chauncey and I were working on" before Bailey was gunned down, even though he said the newspaper was still receiving threats as recently as Tuesday.

"I want to continue Chauncey's legacy of being unafraid to call the wicked man wicked," said Cobb, at times brushing away tears, as he asked for help in finishing Bailey's work.

"I want us to make his untimely, forced exodus our genesis of renewed advocacy for investigative journalism," Cobb said. "I am asking all of you, especially the news media, to donate some time to help us complete his (Bailey's) body of work."

"To the sources who were behind the assassination, it ain't over. You might have assassinated the messenger, but the message will prevail," Cobb added. "We will not allow this to go unresponded to."

An impassioned Mayor Dellums also spoke, urging the crowd not to accept the violence sweeping Oakland.

"We won't be cowered by fear. We cannot fall prey to fear and cynicism," Dellums said. "This madness must end and together we must do it."

He said that as mayor, "I am diminished by every death" in the city.

Dellums remembered Bailey as someone who was "always there," camera in one hand, tape recorder in the other, whether it was as the lone journalist covering a kids' athletic event or as part of the media pack covering the big events.

None of the speakers directly referred to the Your Black Muslim Bakery organization, which was founded 40 years ago to help Oakland's poor but has been wracked by legal and financial troubles in recent years.

Bailey's funeral Mass at St. Benedict's, where Bailey was a member, was standing-room only, drawing a crowd sprinkled by local dignitaries, including Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, City Council members Larry Reid and Nancy Kernighan, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and BART interim general manager Dorothy Dugger.

Mourners sobbed quietly as they contemplated the bleak end of Bailey's journalism career, which spanned more than 30 years in newspapers and television. In addition to working for more than a decade at the Oakland Tribune, he was a reporter and columnist for the Detroit News for 10 years.

Attendees of Wednesday's service also remembered Bailey's intensity and outspoken ways, with Father Matthews describing Bailey as "an intelligent, articulate, often-uncompromising black man who said what he thought."

The mourners laughed, too, at stories about Bailey's foibles, such as Oakland Tribune managing editor Martin G. Reynolds' recollections of how Bailey, a sharp dresser by day, would show up at the basketball court wearing too-low shoes, too-high socks and too-short shorts.

"Chauncey epitomized what it meant to be a dogged reporter," said Reynolds. "He captured the essence of Oakland because he was Oakland."

Matthews remembered Bailey as someone who "hungered to be accepted for who he was an intelligent, outspoken, articulate, often uncompromising black man."

"Chauncey was constant in his dedication to his vocation as a journalist," said Matthews, "and for nearly 35 years tried his best to quench our thirst for truth, for justice, for equality."

Rodney Best, who worked with Bailey at the "Soul Train" local cable television station, said Bailey was "a multi-tasker" who wrote for five black newspapers throughout the country and worked in television in addition to his day jobs at the Tribune and later the Post.

Cobb added that just as the late soul singer James Brown had a reputation as being the hardest-working man in show business, Bailey was "the hardest-working man in the news media."

Cobb said Bailey told him that when he recently was named the editor of the Post, "it was what he always wanted," he was proud to be an editor and people would stop him on the street and take his photograph.

"Now he was truly a happy man," Cobb said.

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