Issue 3: Oakland

In October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, a city where Black residents were organizing against police violence and demanding greater control over the conditions of their lives. The Panthers would change political organizing across the world, drawing on a Black Oakland shaped by generations of migration, labor struggles, and neighborhood relationships. The city also gave us the blues clubs of Seventh Street and the unmistakable music of the Town, where artists developed their own ways of speaking to the world. Oakland’s cultural and political influence is considerable, though its history is far more interesting than any account limited to its most famous figures.

For its third issue, Black Life Everywhere asks: How has Oakland fed you? We want to hear about the Oakland that raised you, surprised you, and occasionally got on your last nerve. Maybe you learned something important from a neighbor whose name few people outside your block would recognize. Perhaps you left years ago and still measure other cities against the one you knew growing up. We are curious about the stories Oaklanders tell among themselves, including the ones that complicate what the rest of the world thinks it knows about the Town.

The sixtieth anniversary of the Black Panther Party invites us to spend time with Oakland’s political history and the generations of Black residents who made it. The Panthers’ survival programs addressed hunger and other urgent needs in neighborhoods where government resources were scarce by political choice. Their organizing drew from relationships among residents who knew the consequences of those decisions personally. Oaklanders have inherited those histories alongside their own experiences of the city, and younger generations are deciding which traditions speak to their lives and which ones they intend to challenge.

For many Black families, the question of Oakland’s future is inseparable from the cost of remaining here. Rising rents and housing prices have changed neighborhoods and separated relatives who once lived within walking distance of one another. The loss of familiar places can be painful, particularly when the people who made those places meaningful have also been forced to leave. Still, Oaklanders are making lives here, raising children, creating art, and arguing over the decisions that will shape the city their families know.

Over eight weeks, Black Life Everywhere will publish writing and creative contributions from Oaklanders reflecting on their experiences of the Town. The issue will include a community symposium and vendor fair, followed by a Thanksgiving food drive. We hope to hear from residents across generations, including those whose relationships with Oakland have changed after leaving.

There is plenty about Oakland that the rest of the world knows by reputation. We are interested in what its people know from living here, and what they want the next generation to discover for themselves.