{"id":6308,"date":"2023-06-08T20:30:28","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T20:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.soe.umich.edu\/studentstories\/?page_id=6308"},"modified":"2023-07-12T15:13:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T15:13:48","slug":"black-liberation-walking-tour-oakland","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/past-trips\/san-francisco-2023\/sf-bay-area-sites\/black-liberation-walking-tour-oakland\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Liberation Walking Tour (Oakland)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The final two hours of our first full day was spent, quite literally, with our \u201cboots on the ground\u201d as we participated in the Black Liberation Walking Tour<\/a> through Oakland\u2019s Hoover-Foster neighborhood, led by David Peters<\/strong>.  The brainchild of Mr. Peters, a third-generation West Oaklander, the walking tour features stops where our group learned about the areas rich Black history through storytelling\u2014partly Mr. Peter\u2019s own family history growing up in the community, partly oral histories recorded and edited by Liam O\u2019Donoghue, host of the podcast East Bay Yesterday<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Our tour began at the steps of the old St. Augustine Episcopal Church, where the Black Panther\u2019s Free Breakfast Program was first organized.  Other stops on the tour included the locally popular Flint\u2019s Barbecue (just while we stood in front of the site two separate community members stopped to inquire if it was reopening!) and the home of columnist Delilah Beasley<\/a>, who was a historian and columnist for the Oakland Tribune back in 1923.  During the early 20th<\/sup> century, Ms. Beasley traversed the State of California by herself conducting research for her book, The Negro Trail Blazers of California<\/a>, published in 1919.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Our tour begins @ St. Augustine Episcopal Church,
location of the Black Panther’s first Free Breakfast Program.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Mr. Peters shared that the idea behind the tour was a way for folks living in the area to take pride in its history.  As we walked the streets and interacted with community members, Mr. Peters described Oakland as \u201cthe western-most outpost of the Deep South, up until about 1980\u201d recalling as a kid returning with family to the rural South during the summers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tour also features the work of the Bay Area Mural Program<\/a>, including the impressive mural below, featuring many of the sites along the Walking Tour.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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A mural created by the Bay Area Mural Program features Oakland’s history.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Gene Anderson<\/strong>, fellow lifelong resident of Oakland who accompanied our group, also helped conduct historical research for the walking tour.  A particularly poignant stop was near the I-580 freeway\u2014with a multi-tiered overpass maze of exits and onramps.  The exhaust and noise pollution were physical distractions as we listened to how the highway\u2019s path was intentionally designed to tear through the Hoover-Foster neighborhood, with the impact of displacing thousands of Black residents when it was constructed in the 1960s.  Both the construction project itself and the health risks to those living within such close proximity to the highway is consistent with racial disparities seen all over the U.S.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Chef Empress Xia Nei poses next to her mural image which graces the side of Third Eye Soul Kitchen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Within 100 yards of the overpass stands Third Eye Soul Kitchen<\/a>, started by proprietor Chef Empress Xia Nei<\/strong>.  We met Empress as she and colleagues stood chatting in front of her establishment.  Her goal is to create space for the community and reconnect folks with ancestral ways of eating.  The Kitchen provides fresh produce and healthy offerings as part of a weekly market. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plagued with crime and police violence during the 1980s and 1990s, Oakland\u2019s reputation suffered.  However, the pressure for affordable housing in the Bay Area saw a resurgence of higher-income residents moving back into the area\u2014and with that, the increased cost of housing continues to displace some longtime residents.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As described in this 2021 Oaklandside.org article<\/a>, \u201cThe Black Liberation Walking Tour organizers hope that by documenting the stories of people who have spent generations in the neighborhood, they can help the community resist a type of gentrification that\u2019s been all too common in Oakland. Newcomers arrive and like the sense of history an area has, but don\u2019t invest in preserving it\u2014or respecting the people whose families have been there for generations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This walking tour gave our group a lot to think about, as we closed out the first day of our program.  For me, it was a wonderful way to ground myself with people and places we want to center as we consider access to and the purpose of Higher Education.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

–Melinda Richardson, Managing Director, CSHPE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final two hours of our first full day was spent, quite literally, with our \u201cboots on the ground\u201d as we participated in the Black Liberation Walking Tour through Oakland\u2019s Hoover-Foster neighborhood, led by David Peters.  The brainchild of Mr. Peters, a third-generation West Oaklander, the walking tour features stops where our group learned about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":6432,"parent":6283,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6308","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6582,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6308\/revisions\/6582"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.marsal.umich.edu\/studentstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}