A BRIEF HISTORY OF WEST OAKLAND: 

In The Very Beginning, Oakland was a kind of paradise for native Americans with its good weather and abundance of food. Then came the Spaniards, the land grants, and the gold rush across the bay.  In 1869 the transcontinental railroad was completed at "Oakland Point,” and in just two years most of West Oakland’s Victorian houses were thrown up, making it a railroad boom-town. The first occupants were mostly European immigrants - Italians, Portuguese, and Greeks, plus some of the big Spanish land-grant owners who built he mansions..

In The 1930s, West Oakland went through its second big change when it became zoned for manufacturing. Plants and warehouses were built right next to homes and schools and the neighborhood began suffering from noise and air pollution. Still, there were jobs.

West Oakland Changed Again during WWII when African-Americans flooded in to work in the railroads, shipyards, and military bases. Many old-timers reminisce fondly about the 1940s, '50s, and '60s in West Oakland when they say it was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in. One man told me he didn't know he was surrounded by white people until he went to a Cal Football game. There was racism and red-lining and neglect by politicians, but some unions were strong and the money was pretty good and churches, schools, and nightclubs flourished. Women worked, often in white people's homes, but they had their own neighborhood clubs and associations. When the Pullman Porters brought the blues to San Francisco and Oakland, "Harlem West" grew up along 7th street. For two decades people of all colors came there for the music, laughter, liquor, and food. There was also the "ten and two:" Ten for the girl and two for the room. 

The Decline of West Oakland started in the late '50s when jobs disappeared, a freeway cut the neighborhood in half, and hundreds of Victorians were bulldozed to build a huge, regional post office. In the '60s redevelopment money destroyed hundreds of more Victorian homes to make way for low-income housing arranged in “Villages.” The Black Panthers brought pride to the neighborhood in the 1960s, but th;ey prompted guns and repression by the police. And since the Panthers were local and there were drug gang in the neighborhood drugs became a problem. Most of the Panther’s good works were done by women. Harlem West on seventh street died completely in 1972 when noise from BART made it uninhabitable. Then, one of the worst blows to the neighborhood came: a crack epidemic in the late '80s and early '90s, combined with poverty and powerlessness , to destroy families and male West Oakland unsafe.  (You can see the children who suffered from their parents addiction in the "Filbert Street" gallery on my Homepage.)

The Final Blow to the black community is happening now. The price for a 14,000-foot condo in one of the new huge developments going up is around $800,000. These new buildings are little more than an arrangement of boxes but - for those who can afford it - the weather is great and it’s only a 6 minute BART ride to downtown San Francisco.