Difference between revisions of "Oakland, California"

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Oakland is a city in California. The population is about 400,000. Oakland it part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area, which together has a population of over 7 million, making it the sixth largest mertropolitan area in the United States. To Oakland's north is Berkeley, and to the west across the San Francisco Bay and the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge is San Francisco. The city has a reputation for radicalism. Mainstream politicians include William Knowland (1908-1974), the powerful leaders of Republicans in the U.S. Senate in 1953-1959, and quixotic former governor Jerry Brown (b. 1938), who as mayor 1998-2006 helped rebuild business confidence.

Museum

The Oakland Museum, designed by architect Kevin Roche, is an unusual combination of indoor galleries and outdoor gardens. The landscaping of terraced plazas placed among the three museums was planned to relieve the fatigue of museum visitors. A million visitors annually enjoy the park-like environment.

Downtown Oakland in 1930s

The Jewish Community

Jewish families were among the pioneers of Oakland in the 1850s. In the early years, the Oakland Hebrew Benevolent Society, founded in 1862, was the religious, social, and charitable center of the community. Later, the first synagogue, founded in 1875, took over the religious and burial functions. Jews from Poland or Prussian-occupied Poland predominated in the community, and most of them worked in some aspect of the clothing industry. David Solis-Cohen, the noted author, was a leader in the Oakland Jewish community in the 1870's. In 1 879 Oakland's growing Jewish community organized a second congregation, a strictly orthodox group, Poel Zedek. Women's religious organizations flourished, their charitable services extending to needy gentiles as well as Jews. Jewish participants in civic and political affairs included David S. Hirshberg, who served in several Alameda County offices, and Henry Levy, commander of the Oakland Guard militia organization. Oakland Jewry was part of the greater San Francisco community, yet maintained its own charm and character. In 1881 the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland, California, elected Myer Solomon Levy as its rabbi. The London-born Levy practiced traditional Judaism. In 1884 the community faced the need of finding a larger, more fashionably located synagogue. The Israel Ladies Relief Society held a fair and raised $4,000 for the new building. In 1885 the First Hebrew's synagogue burned, increasing the urgency for a new building. Construction of the new synagogue began in May 1886 and was completed by September.

Oakland's Jews attended excellent schools, both secular and religious. Fannie Bernstein was the first Jewess to graduate from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1883. First Hebrew Congregation sponsored a Sabbath school which had 75 children in 1887. One of the pupils, Meyer Lissner, was a bright youngster whose letters were published in the Jewish press. The Jewish children of Oakland had an active social life with school events, birthday parties, and Bar Mitzvah. The contract of the popular Rabbi Myer S. Levy was renewed for five years, from 1888 to 1893.

Oakland Jewry was active in public affairs and charitable projects in the 1880's. Rabbi Myer S. Levy was chaplain to the state legislature in 1885, and was invited several times to speak to the congregation of the Unitarian Hamiltonian Church. The Daughters of Israel Relief Society continued its good works both inside and outside the Jewish community. Beth Jacob, the traditional congregation of Old World Polish Jews, continued its separate religious practices while it maintained friendly relations with the members of the first Hebrew Congregation.

Oakland's Jewish community had able social and political leadership in David Samuel Hirshberg. Until 1886 he was an officer in the Grand Lodge of B'nai B'rith. He served as Under Sheriff of Alameda County in 1883 and was active in Democratic Party political affairs. In 1885 he was appointed Chief Clerk of the US Mint in San Francisco. As a politician, he had detractors who accused him of using his position in B'nai B'rith to foster his political career. ^[1]

When refugees from the fire-stricken, poorer Jewish quarter of San Francisco came to Oakland, the synagogue provided immediate aid. Food and clothing were given to the needy and 350 people were given a place to sleep. For about a week the synagogue fed up to 500 people three times a day. A large part of the expenses were paid by the Jewish Ladies' organization of the synagogue.

Posey Tube

The Posey Tube is the underwater auto tunnel that opened in 1928 to connect Oakland to Alameda. Designed by George A. Posey, chief engineer and surveyor for Alameda County, the tunnel incorporated many state-of-the-art ideas. In addition, the Art Deco architecture of the tunnel portals, designed by Henry Meyers, won praise for combining aesthetics and utilitarian functions. The only shortcoming of the Posey Tube was that the greatly increased automobile traffic went far beyond the estimates of peak load envisioned by the tunnel's planners. Still in use after almost seventy years, the Posey Tube is a monument to the age of the automobile.

KKK

In the 1920's the Ku Klux Klan was very active in Oakland. Klansmen reflected the overall native-born white male population in Oakland and had more representation among white-collar and skilled workers. Klansmen enjoyed political success in opposition to ethnic patronage for Catholics and machine politics, basing their appeal on local, specific issues such as road paving. The collapse of the Klan in the city came about because some Klan members gave in to the corruption of machine politics, not because the Klan had lost its socioeconomic base or support due to its ideological marginality.^[2]

World War II

During World War II, an influx of black and white migrants taking jobs in shipbuilding drastically altered the demographic make-up of the East Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, and Richmond, which had previously consisted of mostly white lower- and middle-class communities. Most of the newcomers lived in newly constructed public housing that defined the patterns of racial and class segregation that lasted for the next quarter century. There was considerable political turmoil as the new residents sought to wrest control of local government from the white business establishment. This was especially apparent in Oakland, where reform-minded activism persisted through the 1950s.

The housing policies of both the federal and local governments during the war encouraged the racial and ethnic tensions that still remain. The acute housing shortage that developed with an influx of workers for the shipyards forced the federal government to step in to assure wartime production. The programs turned working-class neighborhoods, which had been racially and ethnically diverse, into ghettos like those in eastern cities. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration favored loans for houses in new all-white developments on the urban fringes. ^[3]

Unions

In 1946 the Retail Merchants Association (RMA) of Oakland refused to allow two member stores to negotiate with Retail Clerks Union local 1265. Workers from Kahn's and Hastings department stores retaliated by striking, and soon were battling not only their employers and the RMA, but also the city council and the Oakland Tribune, both controlled by powerful, antiunion publisher Joseph Knowland. When even the police joined the fray, 130,000 workers from 142 American Federation of Labor unions throughout the city took December 3-5, 1946, as a "work holiday" to support the strikers and protest police partiality.

The general strike in Oakland was part of a nationwide series of strikes in 1946. the the Oakland incident involved most city workers whole-heartedly endorsing a strike which for 54 hours shut down most economic activity in the city. Essential facilities were maintained at minimum levels while city leaders and national union officials worked to end the strike, but its official termination neither resolved smoldering issues nor penetrated worker discontent. In the 1947 municipal election a labor slate of candidates defeated the incumbents.

Out of worker solidarity grew political activism. Together, Oakland's workers put labor members on city council, forced the RMA to accept collective bargaining, and created the progressive Oakland Voters League.^[4]

Black Radicals

The city has a reputation for radicalism and leftist politics. In 1977 Oakland elected the city's first African American reform mayor, Lionel Wilson. Conservative candidates have not fared well. For example, Ted Dang's loss in the 1994 mayoral race to African-American incumbent Elihu Harris can be attributed primarily to his inability to unite diverse Asian-American groups, his conservative emphasis in a predominantly leftist city, and an antagonistic campaign strategy that exacerbated racial tension. His antigovernment and negative themes ran counter to Harris's attempts to create an activist government and a strong multiracial coalition. Dang's failure to balance ideology, interest, and racial identification, lack of political experience, and overreliance on his campaign manager ultimately cost him the race.

In the 1960s in West Oakland, an adjacent suburb, a conservative city council that believed economic and political problems would best be solved by increasing economic development. However, the minority population, 40% black and 10% Latino, insisted on a redistribution of existing wealth, which led to the establishment of their own representative governmental organs. Both factions eventually found it to their mutual benefit to negotiate in an institutionalized manner.

Opposition to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system encouraged West Oakland activists to create a strong local identity. BART supporters valued regional mobility and blamed ghetto poverty on the inaccessibility of suburban jobs. However black activists blamed BART for harming the ghetto poor by encouraging job migration to the suburbs and displacing residents. As compensation, they demanded that BART hire black workers and increase relocation payments. While West Oakland activists largely failed to influence BART, the newly unified community did gain local control of schools and urban poverty programs.

The Black Panthers, led by Bobby Seale, had a major base in the city. The Black Panther newspaper was founded in 1967 in Oakland as the main vehicle of expression of the Black Panther Party. Devoted to the cause of radical black nationalism in the United States, the paper was developed not only as a means of reaching its local constituency but also as a means of gaining national media exposure. During its 12 years of existence, it served to give definition, form, and substance to a particular vision of black identity. Subsequent revivals of the paper in the 1990's demonstrated the continuing allure of the Black Panther movement and the relevance of its role in the black nationalist movement.

Marcus Foster (1923 – 1973) was an outstanding black educator who gained a national reputation while serving as associate sSuperintendent of schools in Philadelphia, and as the first black Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District. He was murdered in 1973 by the Symbionese Liberation Army as a political statement.

On the far left, Democrat Ron Dellums (1935- ), represented Berkeley and Oakland in Congress, (1971-1998). He became the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee in January 1993. A strong pacifist, his district nevertheless houses a major naval facility that faced closure in the current phase of downsizing the military budget. Dellums was thus placed in a curious position of being philosophically opposed to military spending but pragmatically defending his district's interests. He was the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California, and was replaced in 1998 by the equally militant, but much less powerful, Democrat Barbara Lee (b. 1946).

Sports

In sports, Oakland is home to the NFL's Oakland Raiders, MLB's Oakland Athletics, and the NBA's Golden State Warriors.

Further reading

• Elkind, Sarah S. Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland. (1998). 246 pp.
• Johnson, Marilynn S. The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (1994). 302 pp.
• McCory, Jesse J. Marcus Foster and the Oakland Public Schools: Leadership in an Urban Bureaucracy. (1978). 163 pp.
• Oden, Robert Stanley. "Power Shift: A Sociological Study of the Political Incorporation of People of Color in Oakland, California, 1966-1996." PhD Dissertation U. of California, Santa Cruz 1999. 248 pp. DAI 2000 60(11): 4193-A. DA9951415
• Pressman, Jeffrey L. Federal Programs and City Politics: The Dynamics of Aid Process in Oakland (1975) argues that the Oakland experience shows that without upgrading local political leadership, money alone cannot solve urban problems.
• Pressman, Jeffrey L., and Aaron B. Wildavsky. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland. (1973). 182 pp on the failure of the Great Society in Oakland.
• Self, Robert. "'To Plan Our Liberation': Black Power And The Politics Of Place In Oakland, California, 1965-1977," Journal of Urban History 2000 26(6): 759-792.
• Ware, Alan. The Breakdown of Democratic Party Organization, 1940-1980. (1985). 275 pp. compares Oakland and Berkeley

references

1. ↑ William M. Kramer, "The Emergence of Oakland Jewry." Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 1978 10 (2): 99-125, (3): 238-259, (4): 353-373; 11(1): 69-86; 1979 11(2): 173-186, (3): 265-278. Journal Issn: 0043-4221
2. ↑ Chris Rhomberg, "White Nativism and Urban Politics: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California." Journal of American Ethnic History 1998 17(2): 39-55.
3. ↑ See Johnson (1994)
4. ↑ Philip J. Wolman, "The Oakland General Strike of 1946." Southern California Quarterly 1975 57(2): 147-178. Journal Issn: 0038-3929