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Black Oakland Tour

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GLOBAL

Bay Area Culture Tours

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Intro/ West Oakland BART Station

Tour Item

English

FINAL West Oakland (online-audio-converter.com).mp3

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As we continue our tour, we head towards the West Oakland Post office. This is not truly a stop, just an invitation to look around and to reminisce on all of the vibrant liveliness that was lost due to it’s development of the post office source: Wiki

The Oakland Main Post Office, previously described as "a large ugly building and parking structure located at 1675 7th Street," is the U.S. Postal Service's principal East Bay mail processing and distribution facility. The post office complex, also known as the U.S.P.S. Oakland Processing and Distribution Center, is one of several infrastructure and redevelopment projects — including the Nimitz Freeway's double-deck Cypress Street structure, the MacArthur and Grove-Shafter freeways, the Acorn project, BART, and the realignment of the Nimitz following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and collapse of the Cypress structure —   that remade West Oakland, disrupted the fabric of a long-established Black community and displaced thousands of residents. 

The displacement effect is still currently exacerbated by The 7th Street West Oakland Transit Village Streetscape, Phase II project, which planned to make street and sidewalk improvements on 7th Street between Wood Street and Peralta Street. This project was meant to enhance the roadway with new sidewalks, trees, street lights, refreshed pavement, and added bicycle lanes- do you see the changes?

Construction for the project began in September 2018 and was anticipated to be completed in Summer 2019, but is still in progress. During construction, 7th Street is partially obstructed, but one lane in each direction remains open for continued access. 
Proposed Benefits of the project include:
Wider sidewalks and high-visibility crosswalks
Bike lanes
New trees and landscaping
Improved stormwater management
Pedestrian lighting, benches and trash cans
Walk-of-fame plaques to commemorate the musical history of 7th Street.  

This work was expected to be finished by the end of September 2021. The final step was supposed to be installing the 88 bronze Walk of Fame plaques, which are currently in the production process.

History of 7th Street (source) is known for many things:The transcontinental railroad’s western endpoint at the harbor. The seat of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters on 5th Street, home of the first Black-led labor organization in the American Federation of Labor. Maya Angelou’s brief mid-war stay in the neighborhood. The hub of the Black Panther Party
Unknown histories include:
Black epicenter of the 1st part of the 1900’s due to:
African Americans escaping the Jim Crow south
Work opportunities at the port, Navy, etc, pullman porters
“Anchor city”

As Found SF’s article shares, More than any single event since its incorporation as a city in 1852, World War II transformed Oakland, notably West Oakland. One result of the influx of workers and economic vitality that the War brought to West Oakland was the development of Seventh Street as the neighborhood’s cultural centerpiece. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Seventh Street became a nationally reputed cultural haven for African-Americans. Jazz and blues musicians from around the country would perform in the Street’s myriad clubs producing a sound and scene known as the West Coast Blues. We explore the elements that produced the Seventh Street heyday and the factors that, from the 1950s onward, created its economic and social demise.

The epitome of Seventh Street, however, was its nightlife and its music. Dance halls, theaters, cafes and clubs lined the street. The majority of West Oakland’s jazz clubs were found on Seventh Street, more than fifteen by the mid-1940s. Growth of the  entertainment industry in Oakland was due to the influx of people with paychecks and appetites for fun. There was a club for everyone on the socioeconomic scale. Because Black musicians were not allowed into the Local 6 of the American Federation of Musicians, they were prevented from playing in clubs in downtown Oakland .(16) Seventh Street became the place to play, and play they did! Styles like New Orleans, swing, bebop, and blues could be heard up and down the street. 

Migrants brought with them a musical style that was rooted in the South, which lent elements to a new style called the West Coast Blues. It had “slow, draggier beat and a kinda mournful sound ”(17) compared to that of Chicago. To hear the West Coast Blues, the place to be was Slim Jenkin’s, the most renowned club on the West Coast. It attracted a mixed clientele and the hottest names in jazz and blues like Nat King Cole, B.B. King, Charles Brown, The Ink Spots, Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, and Sarah Vaughan. Lines would bend around the corner, while taxis zipped in and out filled with people waiting to listen to Jenkin’s next big act.

The Housing Act of 1949, under eminent domain, condemned to destruction the homes of Blacks that had fallen to disrepair. Dozens of blocks of homes were bulldozed to the ground to make room for housing projects like Acorn, which alone displaced approximately nine thousand residents. Four hundred more homes and business were demolished in 1960 to make room for the construction of a U.S Postal Service distribution center .(19) The Black residents that were once pushed into West Oakland were now being forced out, taking with them the wealth and culture that created the allure of Seventh Street.

Post Office/ 7th Street Corridor

Main Post Office

Esther Mabry (May 25, 1920-May 31, 2010) 
From the post office, we shift our attention to the opposite side of the street, to one such establishment on 7th between Willow and Wood Streets. The site was the former Esther’s Orbit Room, a jazz and blues club opened in 1959 by Esther Mabry, which once hosted such prominent musicians as Etta James, B.B. King, and Al Green.

Esther’s was located in West Oakland’s once vibrant 7th street, an area dubbed the “Harlem of the West Coast.” Close to the Port of Oakland as well as the railroad station, 7th Street hosted a lively nightlife full of visitors and locals alike. In the center of it all was Esther’s Orbit Room. Today, 7th Street is largely devoid of the vibrancy it once held. Despite its best efforts, Esther’s Orbit Room finally closed in 2009.Source: https://www.fieldofficedesign.com/esthers

Hear Esther Mabry share about her time hosting the Orbit Room.
 In 2019, EB PREC East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative hosted a series of community conversations focused on creating cooperatives and small businesses along historic 7th Street as part of our mission to tap into local leadership and increase access to technical assistance. This community engagement birthed the 7th Street Cooperative Cultural Corridor Revitalization Plan, a vision that moves forward in partnership with a broad spectrum of stakeholders.

This unique development strategy empowers the community to guide the 7th Street's redevelopment. Community-centered development reflects the needs of current residents, respects neighborhood character and acknowledges the legacy of the Black economic district that was historically grounded along the corridor, formerly known as ‘The Harlem of the West.’

From information provided by EBPREC, they envision developments along the 7th Street Cultural Cooperative Corridor that prioritize culturally-relevant food infrastructure and include: a sidewalk activation of the Freedom Farmers Market and affordable spaces for cooperative businesses. 

Opening a community-centered space in the former Esther's space will seed business administration and entrepreneurship in West Oakland.  Within this supportive ecosystem, Black arts, business, home ownership, and culture will re-emerge alongside a strong Afrofuturist Arts movement led by our Community Arts & Organizing Lead Alena Museum.

Now that we’ve experienced where many African American community members lived, we next we take a step back in time to think about how the Black community grew in Oakland during the reconstruction era to the Second Great migration and beyond. 


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Esther's Orbit Room

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16th St Station

16th street.mp3

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UNIA Oakland No 188

UNIA

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Women of the Black Panther Party Mural and Mini Museum

Women of the Black Panther p

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3900 Martin Luther King Junior Way \|||// 

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Marcus Books

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Smokin Woods BBQ

Smokin Woods

5622 Martin Luther King Junior Way \|||// 

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It's All Good Bakery

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BAY AREA CULTURE TOURS

Black Oakland Tour

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