By Carla Thomas

After remaining closed for more than two decades, Tyrone Carney Park reopened Thursday Aug 27, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating a $5 million investment in recreation, wellness and community space in East Oakland.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, District 7 Councilmember Ken Houston, city leaders, community partners and residents gathered at the half-acre park, located at 10501 Acalanes Drive, to commemorate its long-awaited revitalization.

“Revitalizing and reopening Tyrone Carney Park strengthens the Town by expanding youth programs, supporting job training, and improving public health,” said Lee said. “Oakland is on the move, fulfilling our promise to build a safer and more vibrant East Oakland.”

The mayor said she thought the sculpture designed by Dana King was beautiful and that the event was emotional for her being the daughter of a veteran. 

“I know the Carney family, and it was wonderful to see Deborah and the entire Carney family there. It was wonderful to see where seniors, youth, and everybody can enjoy a beautiful safe park in Sobrante Park with Tyrone’s legacy.”

Led by Oakland Public Works, the improvement project added four play areas, two fitness-equipment areas, paved walking paths and a circular central plaza with ornamental paving. Improvements also included a lawn, wrought-iron perimeter fencing, new gates, extensive landscaping and a memorial honoring the park’s namesake.

The city contracted with Beliveau Engineering Contractors for structural improvements and Dillingham Associates for landscaping.

Originally opened in 1968, the park closed in 2002 and remained inaccessible for more than 20 years. Its restoration grew from a multiyear collaboration between the City of Oakland, East Oakland Neighborhoods Initiative (EONI) and Sobrante Park Advisory Council.

Community advocacy by EONI helped secure funding through Proposition 68, California’s 2018 Parks and Water Bond. Additional financial support came from Oakland Capital Improvements Impact Fee funds and a California Strategic Growth Council Transformative Climate Communities grant.

Houston said the reopening represented more than the physical restoration of a neighborhood park.

“It reflects our commitment to investing in East Oakland, honoring one of our hometown heroes, and creating a safe, welcoming place where families can gather, children can play, and community can thrive,” Houston said. “Tyrone Carney’s legacy of service will continue to inspire generations through this park.”

The park was named in honor of Carney, an Oakland resident and U.S. Marine Corps private first-class who died while serving in Vietnam on June 9, 1968. He was 20 years old. Before entering military service, Carney participated in the Boy Scouts of America and Youth for Christ.

His first cousin, Deborah Carney, remembered him as a man committed to service.

“Tyrone Carney was a God-sent man,” she said, recalling his words: “ ‘May the works I have done speak for me, when I am resting in my grave and there is nothing else to be said.’”

Oakland Public Works Director Liam Garland said the department was honored to help realize the community’s vision for a safe and welcoming green space.

Myka Hammock, director of Oakland Parks, Recreation and Youth Development, said the park’s tree canopies, play structures and memorial would inspire community youth while providing opportunities for wellness, recreation and connection.

The Sobrante Park Advisory Council and Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation, both key stakeholders in the redevelopment, will continue serving as stewards of the reopened park.

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By Krista Chan, Special to The Post

The legacy of lynchings and racial terror in the American South continues in 2026 in a spate of suspicious deaths of young African Americans across the region. Local authorities have perpetually underinvestigated and even covered up these cases.

The most prominent recent case is that of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old Black man whose body was found on July 6 on Horn Island, off the Mississippi Gulf Coast, after a Fourth of July trip with three white friends.

The NAACP announced its formal involvement in the case on Aug. 17, joining the legal team representing Wells’ family alongside prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

The family has raised questions about discrepancies in accounts of Wells’ final hours, including why his phone was found with one of the friends rather than with his body. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found that his “manner of death remained undetermined.”

In what was likely a retaliatory act for speaking up about her son’s death, Wells’ mother, Christine Wonsley, faced anonymous attacks on her nursing license.

In a recent vigil commemorating Wells’ 19th birthday, Rev. Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant said, “To go from Medgar Evers to Emmett Till, to Nolan Wells, the blood stops here. We came tonight to stop a blood cycle. We are tired of all of these innocent Black bodies being killed.”

In the notorious 1955 case of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury after torturing and murdering Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman in a Mississippi grocery store. While Till’s death is well-known for having galvanized the Civil Rights movement, thousands of lynchings of African Americans have gone unreported.

According to the Equal Justice Institute (EJI), 4,084 lynchings of African Americans occurred in the 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950, and not a single white person was convicted of murder during this period.

The Congressional Black Caucus has also thrown its weight behind the Wells family, sending a letter to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch an independent federal review of the case. This request faces the challenge of a hostile environment towards racial justice at the DOJ.

Under the Trump administration’s attacks on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), the DOJ has focused primarily on litigating employers for hiring underrepresented minorities.

Though Nolan Wells’ case has reached headlines today, the deaths of other young African Americans across the South remain under-reported and under-investigated.  Crump is simultaneously handling a portfolio of other cases involving the deaths of young Black men, namely Daniel Erving and Tyler Smith – 18-year-old Black men who died within three months of each other.

Erving of Sachse, Texas, died on April 14 at Lake Ray Hubbard after jumping from a railroad bridge with friends. His body was recovered four days later, and his death was ruled an accidental drowning—a finding his mother disputes. “The autopsy report shows my son had an unobstructed airway, so my son did not drown,” Tameca Erving said. In July, two individuals were arrested and charged with tampering with physical evidence after allegedly discarding Erving’s clothing and cell phone.

Smith of Lexington, Kentucky, died on July 4 after what police described as an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound. His family has strongly disputed that account. According to a Lexington Police Department citation, the firearm officers recovered did not match the shell casing found at the scene.

A 20-year-old man has been charged with tampering with physical evidence in connection with the shooting. “For 17 days, my sons and I worked tirelessly investigating everything on our own. The police department gave us nothing, absolutely nothing,” Smith’s grandmother said.

Crump has framed all three cases as part of a troubling pattern requiring national attention.

Earlier this month, Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman and mother of four, was found hanging from a tree in the backyard of a vacant home in Jackson, Mississippi, on Aug. 3. Her mother, Christy Spivey, has insisted that her daughter did not take her own life.

The county where Fortune’s body was found was the site of 11 known lynchings between 1895 and 1908, and nearby Hinds County saw 34 lynchings between 1835 and 1934. Unfortunately, this terror cannot be relegated to the history books as Fortune’s case follows two other incidents of African Americans being found hanging from trees in Mississippi within a year.

In September 2025, Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found hanging from a tree at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. On the same day, Cory Zukatis was found hanging from a tree in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Both deaths were ruled as suicides by local authorities.

As of this publication, Fortune’s case is still under investigation by local authorities, and the DOJ and FBI have remained silent about Wells’ case.

Krista Chan is a civic tech professional and Chinese medicine student in Oakland. She writes and organizes around issues of global peace and racial justice.

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