Directions to Eastmont Town Center
Eastmont Neighborhood & Black Cultural Zone
The Eastmont neighborhood of Oakland was originally part of Elmhurst, an unincorporated but independent community south of the city of Oakland. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, thousands of people flooded into Oakland and its neighboring towns, seeking shelter and forcing a building boom. In 1909, after lots of marketing campaigns and political debate, voters in Oakland and the towns of Fruitvale, Melrose, Fitchburg, Elmhurst, and Beulah voted for annexation. These small communities would become officially a part of Oakland which offered commercial, educational, and transportation benefits. For example, while these communities produced agricultural and commercial goods, Oakland had the port from which to move those goods throughout the country.
In 1916 a giant Chevrolet plant was constructed at 69th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in the Eastmont district. The plant, called the Oakland Assembly, became the first auto manufacturing plant in Northern California and a major employer for the community. At its peak, it was producing hundreds of cars each day. During the Second World War, the plant stopped making automobiles for commercial use and began making aircraft engines, ammunition, and guns. After the war the plant resumed making commercial vehicles: sedans, station wagons, coupes. The Eastmont district became a magnet for workers during the plant’s heyday. People found work at nearby auto parts shops, small businesses, hardware stores, plant nurseries (Arroyo Viejo Park is on the site of the Domoto Bros. Nursery), and canneries along East 14th Street, MacArthur and Foothill Boulevards. In need of a more modern facility, the plant was shut down in 1963 when General Motors relocated to Fremont, a suburb in Southern Alameda County.
The Eastmont Mall was built on the site of the former Chevrolet plant. Eastmont Mall opened in phases between 1966 and 1974. The mall quickly became a popular shopping and social hub for residents in the Eastmont district as well as for Oaklanders in general. It boasted clothing and shoe stores, a grocery store, large department stores (JC Penney, Mervyns), fast food chains (H.Salt Esquire Fish & Chips, Orange Julius), and a four-screen multiplex.
Like the auto plant before it, the mall employed hundreds of people throughout the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1970s, deep East Oakland was becoming increasingly African American due, in part, to displacement caused by the redevelopment projects in West Oakland. Racial covenants, discriminatory lending by banks, and “block busting” (the practice of real estate agents telling white homeowners that their property values would plummet if/when African Americans moved in) were not enough to prevent “white flight” from Eastmont and the surrounding neighborhoods. Civil unrest and political activism also spurred “white flight” to places like San Leandro, Hayward, Castro Valley, and further out into Contra Costa County. The Black Panther Party, with their demands for Black empowerment and right to self-defense, had opened a headquarters at 8501 East 14th Street which frightened a lot of whites.
The mall, like the rest of East Oakland, was greatly impacted in the 1980s and 1990s by the influx of drugs (especially crack) and its attendant gang violence into the community. With the increase in crime, those people who could afford to, moved out of the area. Businesses closed. Property values plummeted. The most damaging legacy of the crack epidemic was the destruction of families who were caught up in the using, selling, and distributing drugs. Families were split apart as the government’s “war on drugs” led to mass incarceration of young people, many with children who ended up in the foster care system or living with grandparents and other relatives. The drug epidemic and lack of community investment by the city government destabilized East Oakland economically.
Today members of the Eastmont community are working to reverse the narratives about East Oakland. Filmmaker Cheryl Fabio has produced a documentary, “East Oakland Counter Narratives” that spotlights the stories of long-term African American residents of the neighborhood. Nonprofit organizations like Acta Non Verba (an urban farm initiative) and the East Oakland Collective are working to combat food insecurity in the community. The East Oakland Youth Development Center, now in its 45th year, continues to guide and support youth in the community.
The Black Cultural Zone (BCZ), a community development corporation, promises to elevate Black entrepreneurship and community stewardship along International Boulevard and other commercial strips in East Oakland. Carolyn “CJ” Johnson, executive director of the Black Cultural Zone, was born and raised in Oakland. She has witnessed how years of disinvestment and the crack epidemic gutted her community. The resulting disruption not only impacted the commercial vitality of East Oakland, but negatively impacted relationships, according to CJ. The quality of life had changed: there was no quality food, no places to exercise that were safe. People moved away. Gates and fences went up. People no longer knew their neighbors. Those human relationships are the strength of any community.
She said, “I think the quality of life is very poor.” East Oakland “looks like a ticking bomb waiting for us to be gone.” But she is hopeful that the BCZ and the community can turn things around. The BCZ aims to get people to move back to Oakland. When people come to Oakland she wants them to know that this is a place where “Black people are, and they’re thriving, and living with ease.”
CJ wants Liberation Park at Eastmont Town Center to feel like a homecoming, to welcome back people who left. CJ plans to establish ten Black Cultural Zones in East Oakland which will offer housing, arts and culture, health and wellness programs, retail, a stage, and a market hall. She’d like to see BCZs in West Oakland, too.
Listen to an interview with Carolyn Johnson, executive director of the BCZ:
Voices of the People:
Listen to Oakland neighbors talk about what they love about their communities, the changes they’ve seen, what they envision for the future of Oakland and ideas on how to get there.