Groundbreaking for West Oakland 100%-Affordable Housing Complex

Seventh Street, called the “Harlem of the West” back in the day, was where Black business and cultural life thrived, resounding in the sounds of Billie Holiday and B. B. King and Al Green, who might play at Slim Jenkins Supper Club or some other spot there, like Esther’s Orbit Room, owned by the beautiful Esther Mabry. Seventh Street was where there had been a Black bank and pharmacy and movie theater—the Lincoln Theatre—most in the very same block as the new development. Appropriately, the groundbreaking revealed the new housing complex would be named “The Black Panther.”

Development Headed by Former Black Panther Leader Elaine Brown

Special to the Post

Everyone gathered last Friday morning at the groundbreaking at 7th and Campbell in West Oakland for the 100% affordable housing development there seemed to recognize the historic nature of the moment.  Introduced by program host Regina Jackson, former president of the Oakland Police Commission, here was this former Panther leader, Elaine Brown, come home to build something where the Panthers started.

Brown immediately thanked Vince Bennett, President and CEO of her nonprofit’s co-developer McCormack Baron Salazar (MBS), a billion-dollar housing developer out of St. Louis, for coming to her rescue by bringing the power of its name and expertise to the development when it was floundering.  And, to the surprise of some, she thanked former Mayor Jean Quan, who seemed filled with pride, for courageously working hard to get the City to capitulate and let her nonprofit, Oakland & the World Enterprises (OAW), build on and eventually purchase this 30-year-blighted and vacant three-quarter acre property for one dollar.

Brown went on to remind everyone that it was in that very block of Seventh Street where, back in 1967, Huey P. Newton was involved in a confrontation with white Oakland police officers that ended with Huey being wounded and one of the cops being killed, triggering the “Free Huey” Movement and the explosive growth of the Black Panther Party nationwide.

Seventh Street, called the “Harlem of the West” back in the day, was where Black business and cultural life thrived, resounding in the sounds of Billie Holiday and B. B. King and Al Green, who might play at Slim Jenkins Supper Club or some other spot there, like Esther’s Orbit Room, owned by the beautiful Esther Mabry.  Seventh Street was where there had been a Black bank and pharmacy and movie theater—the Lincoln Theatre—most in the very same block as the new development.  Appropriately, the groundbreaking revealed the new housing complex would be named “The Black Panther.”