Great-granddaughter of Piedmont's first Black residents, who were forced out by a 'terror campaign,' sues city

"Just over 100 years ago, a prosperous West Oakland family bought a home in Piedmont. The small East Bay enclave, carved out of the center of Oakland by a few hundred voters who didn't want to be annexed by the East Bay's expanding metropolis, had already garnered the nickname "city of millionaires" thanks to its profusion of mansions and wealthy residents. It was a desirable place to live. But this family was Black, and Piedmont, like many California cities in the 1920s, used racial covenants, redlining, and even violence to exclude non-whites. Upon moving into the two-story house on Wildwood Avenue, just half a block from Oakland's city limit, Sidney Dearing, his wife Iréne, and their two children were immediately subjected to a campaign of vicious harassment."

"In May 1924, four months after arriving, a mob of 500 menacing Piedmont residents surrounded the Dearing home and threatened to riot unless the family pledged to sell to a white family and leave, according to reports in the Oakland Tribune. After Sidney Dearing refused, unidentified assailants committed a drive-by shooting, striking the house and cars parked in the front with a fusillade of bullets. Other random terrors became common. Bricks were thrown through the windows. Letters from the KKK, whose membership roles were surging in the Bay Area at the time, threatened to hang the Dearings whether they sold or not. Then came a series of bombing attempts. Dynamite was placed near the home, enough to blow it to splinters. The bombs were discovered before anyone died, but the city of Piedmont soon officially joined the mob effort to push out the Dearings."

A prosperous Black family from West Oakland purchased a home in Piedmont in the 1920s and immediately faced violent, racially motivated exclusion. Neighbors formed a 500-person mob that demanded the family sell and leave. Assailants carried out drive-by shootings, brick attacks, and mailed KKK death threats. Multiple bombing attempts placed dynamite near the house but failed to kill anyone. Piedmont officials moved to condemn and seize the property under the pretext of building a connecting street, using legal mechanisms in concert with physical intimidation to expel the family.

Read at The Oaklandside