ABOUT

Oakland & the World Enterprises

In 2014, Elaine Brown, former Chairman of the Black Panther Party, founded Oakland & the World Enterprises, Inc. (OAW), a nonprofit organization, in Oakland, California. The Mission of OAW is to launch and sustain for-profit businesses for cooperative ownership by formerly incarcerated and other economically marginalized people.

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To realize its Mission of developing businesses, OAW was soon able to acquire a license from the City of Oakland to develop a 32,000 square-foot, three-quarter acre City-owned property in West Oakland, California, on the corner of 7th and Campbell Streets, a lot that had been left abandoned and blighted and vacant by the City for over 30 years. Seventh & Campbell is only a few blocks from the West Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station—the gateway to San Francisco—and is part of the depressed community of Lower Bottoms, contiguous to the Campbell Village Public Housing project.

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Upon possession of the lot, OAW engaged a number of formerly incarcerated people, at $20/hour, to clean and clear the property and establish its first business there, an urban farm, naming it West Oakland Farms. Successfully garnering the support of the entire Oakland City Council to develop the site, OAW agreed to develop not only its businesses there but also affordable housing. Ultimately raising all of the final project budget amount of $80 Million, OAW was able to break ground and start construction on the project in late 2022, naming the building “The Black Panther.”

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Construction is slated for completion in early 2024. OAW is engaged in a vigorous campaign to raise the capital to launch our businesses at 7th & Campbell: a restaurant, a fitness center, a neighborhood market, a tech center and the reinstallation of the urban farm.