This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.”
by Andrew Allio
The camera pans along the street, highlighting the abandoned buildings. Midway down the block, a bulldozed lot is littered with broken concrete, plywood, and other construction debris. It is May 9, 1967, and Ben Williams of KPIX News is reporting from the future site of the West Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station. He stands before a boarded-up storefront, his well-manicured suit and horn-rimmed glasses juxtaposed against the blighted backdrop.
“This is Seventh Street on Oakland’s Westside, an admittedly blighted area directly in the path of proposed Bay Area Rapid Transit District construction.” Williams reports, “Most of the homes and businesses in this area will have to be destroyed to make room for progress, and the push of progress is not always gentle.”
This news segment encapsulated the relationship between BART and “blighted” low-income African American communities: local business owners and residents with little recourse against a powerful and unresponsive government agency. Officials and planners deemed West Oakland livelihoods and community expendable in the forward march of progress. Neighborhood residents would only begin seeing BART’s benefits seven years after the segment aired. Their local station would be the last to open, two years after service officially began. Williams wrapped his segment with a prudent closing line.
“The city has a redevelopment program well underway for this area. When the Bay Area Rapid Transit construction is completed, Oakland’s Westside will be revitalized. But for many, the transition will be a painful one.” [1]
The postwar era in American cities was transformative. Pushed by all levels of government, economic booster groups, and in many cases local residents, suburban development and urban redevelopment were major undertakings across the country. Oakland, California, and the East Bay were no exception to this shift. The newly built Nimitz freeway created an automotive spine along a north-south bayfront corridor, enabling massive suburban development in Alameda County with Oakland serving as its economic hub. Southern Alameda County saw its population explode as subdivision after subdivision opened alongside this new mobility corridor.[2] Local government officials deemed Oakland’s urban environment—suffering from underinvestment and racial divisions exacerbated by redlining and segregation—a space needing renewal and revitalization. Despite homeowners’ fierce opposition, officials believed entire city blocks needed to be demolished and rebuilt for highway construction and redevelopment projects. The freeways that connected residential suburbs to job-rich city centers plowed through neighborhoods to ensure a smooth commute for well-heeled workers.
Enter BART, the rapid transit system that sought to mitigate the effects of highway construction and suburban expansion while promoting economic growth and regional development. The major cities and suburbs of the Bay Area would be linked by BART’s self-declared ultra-modern trains that “rivaled the automobile in comfort.”[3] Most importantly, these trains would connect the downtowns of Oakland and San Francisco by speeding under the San Francisco Bay through the system’s crown jewel, the Transbay Tube. Commuters could emerge from the subway just steps from their jobs on Market Street in San Francisco or Broadway in Oakland. Standing at the intersection of all the proposed lines, Oakland, in particular, stood to gain significantly from this system that would “encourage a continued high rate and type of economic development, and will preserve and enhance a high living standard.”[4]
However, despite BART planners’ sweeping vision, the system imposed significant burdens on minority communities and failed to live up to the economic promises used to promote the system. Though planning documents mention centering the needs of the communities through which BART passed and ensuring further economic growth in the region, it is clear that in some areas these were hollow words.[5] Looking at the disconnect between system planners’ lofty ambitions and the concrete reality is important. Like freeways, rapid transit contributed greatly to inequality in the era of urban renewal.
BART’s plans especially impacted West Oakland, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the East Bay.[6] As the site of a crucial segment of aerial trackway connecting downtown Oakland with the Transbay Tube, the physical impact of the system was supposedly unavoidable. Yet, rather than being placed alongside existing railroads or highways, as was the case for other segments, BART was routed directly through the commercial and cultural heart of the neighborhood.[7] A widened street, concrete pylons, and parking spaces replaced banks, barbers, and grocery stores. Though a station was built, it was the last in the original system plan to open. The benefits heralded by BART were slow to trickle down into West Oakland. The burdens shouldered by the community ensured many residents would not be around to reap these benefits.
The Human Fare
Despite planners and officials treating West Oakland as a blank canvas, it was important that the region’s residents saw that people made their lives in these soon-to-be bulldozed neighborhoods. They cooked and socialized with family and strolled Seventh Street with friends. They shopped at local businesses and played in neighborhood parks.[8] The East Bay’s paper of record, the Oakland Tribune, advanced business and renewal-friendly rhetoric that represented downtown interests rather than those of West Oaklanders. The region’s Black working-class neighborhoods lacked a media outlet that would bring their perspectives to the greater Bay Area.
The Flatlands filled that need by centering and uplifting the voices of these oft-marginalized residents. In its first issue in 1966, the paper’s editorial board forcefully stated what they saw as their purpose: “The flatlands people have had no one to speak for them. The experts talk about poverty and segregation and all that; but the feelings and pressures they breed keep on being ignored or misunderstood. Let’s…spell it out the way it is—from the poor’s point of view. We’ll be one sided but it’s the side that’s been hidden too long.”[9] The Flatlands would cover myriad issues facing Black Oaklanders. Education, community disinvestment, and police brutality were among the many problems the newspaper sought to highlight and address. In the first few issues, however, housing and discrimination received the lion’s share of attention. The paper interviewed community members in each issue, amplifying the everyday concerns of those living in the Flatlands.
Genna Ward, a twenty-six-year West Oakland resident, was one of many who would not benefit from the new regional rapid transit system. A mother of seven and a grandmother to thirty-two, Mrs. Ward’s home was torn down to make room for BART. Unable to afford a new living space in West Oakland with the money given for her old home, Mrs. Ward was forced to leave the neighborhood. In October of 1965, Mrs. Ward was visited by BART men who inspected her house. They measured rooms and looked over the site. Three weeks later, she was handed a contract to sign over her home for $9,400, an offer she said was accompanied by an ultimatum: “Take it or leave it.” After initially resisting, Mrs. Ward was directed to City Hall for housing relocation assistance. Sent from office to office after being brushed aside by officials, she soon realized she was on her own. Beaten down by bureaucracy, Mrs. Ward seemed resigned to her fate.
“I’m going to stay in my house as long as I can. When I do go I don’t really know where I’m going. I wouldn’t mind staying in West Oakland. I’ve never had any trouble with the people. It’s going to be one of the prettiest places in Oakland. They trying to get all the minority people out and build up the good houses. Then it will be a pretty town. I wouldn’t like to go to East Oakland. East Oakland’s got all of West Oakland out there. It’s overcrowded. Moving out there does things to people.”[10]
The human cost of renewal was stark. Mrs. Ward was one of many West Oakland residents who had to leave their homes. According to The Flatlands, from 1961 to 1966, urban renewal projects removed over 6,000 units of housing occupied by low-income residents across Oakland. BART construction destroyed nearly 1,000 units in West Oakland alone. While there was a net gain in housing during this period, The Flatlands reported that most of the new construction was directed toward middle- to high-income earners. These homes were out of the price range of many living in West Oakland. The article noted that not enough homes were made available to those making less than $4,000 a year.[11] The inability of evicted West Oakland residents to relocate to new housing in the neighborhood was a repudiation of the BART proposal. With the removal of local residents, who exactly would benefit from an enhanced high standard of living?
Keenly aware of the disconnect between BART’s benefits and impacts, The Flatlands routinely showcased West Oakland residents who shouldered the highest burden. In an article titled “BART: The Housing Demon,” the paper shredded BART’s approach to the neighborhood. “BART doesn’t care about the poor and the Negroes. If this had been a group of white people something would have been done to solve their problems.”[12] The notion that the needs of poor and Black West Oakland residents were tangential to the demands of the greater region was not unique. Similar to previous redevelopment projects in the area, there was a sense that urban renewal meant “negro removal.”[13]
Those who lived in the path of construction had few resources to mitigate their circumstances. BART offered $9,000 as the fair market value for a three-bedroom house, an insignificant amount when considering property prices and rents increased with closer proximity to the system. The Flatlands spotlighted a family of fruit pickers who had paid off their mortgage in 1945 and spent even more money rehabilitating their home. BART attempted to purchase their property at half the cost of similar homes in the area. The paper also accused the district of forcing a homeowner who was mentally incapable of understanding legal contracts to accept $3,000 for his property. The lack of equitable and fair compensation put homeowners in a precarious situation. In tandem with racist redlining practices that restricted the ability of Black residents to move freely throughout the Bay Area, West Oaklanders were left with few viable options for relocation.
East Oakland was a common destination for the recently evicted, like Mrs. Ward. As one of the few places available to Black homeowners, evictions from urban renewal projects hastened a migration already in progress since the 1950s. The exodus of white residents to the suburbs had opened some housing stock to Black Oaklanders.[14] Residents like Mrs. Ward, however, saw this move as a downgrade in quality. East Oakland was becoming overcrowded. It was home to a glut of liquor stores. Most telling was the lack of adequate transportation. East Oakland lacked easy access to the new BART system.[15] Those most dependent on transit were forced to ride AC Transit, Alameda County’s existing bus system. Relegated to substandard housing and transportation, Black residents were left out of the modernist vision BART put forth. Their exclusion from the benefits of rapid transit’s uplift highlighted exactly who BART was building their system for.
It is difficult to argue against the necessity of BART for the region it serves. A recently published report found that the commute between Southern Alameda County and Downtown San Francisco, typically taking an hour on BART, would be over ten hours by car if 100 percent of riders shifted to driving. That would not be sustainable. Despite its slow recovery from the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the average weekday BART ridership in May 2024 was nearly 170,000. For these riders, BART represents a lifeline connecting them to schools, parks, jobs, family, and friends, among other destinations. Clearly, the region benefitted from what Ben Williams described as the “push of progress.” Unfortunately for working-class Oaklanders like Mrs. Genna Ward, progress pushed them further into the margins. The story of BART in West Oakland raises many questions about what “public” is served by public transportation. Who reaps the benefits of urban development, and who shoulders the burdens? Something worth considering while traveling above or below the urban landscape on your next commute.
Andrew Allio is a PhD candidate in history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Allio’s research focuses on infrastructure, transportation, and urban development in the United States during the twentieth century. His secondary interests relate to pedagogy practices in both history and the humanities more generally. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a middle school math and social studies teacher in Los Angeles. He is currently writing his dissertation on the history of BART and its impact on the development of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Featured image (at top): Ben Williams Reporting in West Oakland, from “BART Evicts Thrift Store Owner in West Oakland,” CBS5 KPIX-TV, May 9, 1967, Bay Area Television Archive, DIVA, San Francisco State University.
[1] Ben Williams, “BART Evicts Thrift Store Owner in West Oakland,” CBS 5 News, San Francisco: KPIX, May 9, 1967, Bay Area Television Archive, DIVA, San Francisco State University, https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/232778.
[2] Robert O. Self, American Babylon. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 151.
[3] Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor, and Bechtel, “The Composite Report: Bay Area Rapid Transit,” 1962.
[4] Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor, and Bechtel, “The Composite Report,” 7.
[5] Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor, and Bechtel, “The Composite Report,” 11.
[6] For more on the history of West Oakland, see Marilynn S. Johnson, The Second Gold Rush (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
[7] Parsons Brinckerhoff, Tudor, and Bechtel, “San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Working Estimates: May 2, 1960, Routes” (San Francisco, 1960), 11-12.
[8] Mary Praetzellis and Adrian Praetzellis, “‘Black is Beautiful’: From Porters to Panthers in West Oakland.” in Putting the“There” There: Historical Archeologies of West Oakland, ed. Mary Praetzellis and Adrian Praetzellis (Rohnert Park, CA: Sonoma State University, 2004), 296.
[9] “Flatlands Says:” The Flatlands, March 12, 1966.
[10] “The Flatlands Profiles,” The Flatlands, May 21, 1966.
[11] Ruth Goodman, “Bulldozing the Poor,” The Flatlands, March 26, 1966.
[12] Elijah Turner, “BART: The Housing Demon,” The Flatlands, June 5, 1966.
[13] Chris Rhomberg, No There There (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 122.
[14] Self, American Babylon, 161.
[15] “The Flatlands Profiles” The Flatlands, May 21, 1966.
