The Black Panther Party’s first home is about to be torn down to erect a 20-unit, lavish apartment complex.
The Oakland Landmarks Board has pre-approved a plan to demolish the original headquarters of the Black Panther Party into a 20-unit apartment block that includes only 2 low-income units.
Proprietor, Kim Cloud, who also owns a bakery on the ground floor, says, “it’s very important to keep the history alive” and plans to reopen the building with a commemorative wall paying tribute to Black Panther Party history.
The proposal has received mixed criticisms from locals, council officials and former Panthers still living in the area. Concerns for historical erasure, gentrification and displacement have been met with the board’s request for a deeper historical analysis of the site, according to The Oaklandside.
Former Black Panthers have not been included in the advisory process. “Consulting us is the best thing, whether it’s yay or nay. We didn’t know if we were going to live to tell the story, but we did, and we’re here,” Katherine Campbell told The Oaklandside.
Co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Dr Huey P. Newton’s widow, Fredrika Newton, surprisingly supports the project.
Former Black Panther, Saturu Ned, said there is upset from members of the National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party. “I’m getting calls from all over the country. To them that’s like tearing down a museum because that’s where it all started,” he told The Oaklandside.
Other former Panthers have commended owner Kim Cloud’s consultations with former members to honour the site’s history.
“He has always opened his doors to us so that we can share Black Panther history in his bakery,” Newton said in an Instagram statement.
“I’ve owned this building more than 20 years. Nobody prior to me acknowledged the Black Panthers. No one ever even paid attention or gave a damn about the history until I brought it to their attention,” Cloud said to the San Francisco Business Times.
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“It’s just gentrifying my neighbourhood, erasing Black people from Bushrod and Santa Fe,” a resident told SFGate.
Saturu Ned, also said that the building is akin to a museum – a site that holds history within its physical presence. “Someone has a right to look at what’s going to benefit them and their family, but also we need to look at the community. When we did housing, it was housing according to income,” he said during the approval meeting.
Can we commemorate history while destroying the physical relics that tie us to it? Many would argue, no.
