Attend Oakland City Council, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 4 p.m.

By Post Staff

Everyone, from journalists to public officials expresses regret about the decline in Oakland’s African American population.  This week we have a great opportunity to stop regretting and start acting.

A wealthy housing developer wants to build housing that is not affordable to Oaklanders in an area of downtown that was designated by the Oakland City Council as the “Black Arts Movement and Business District.”

This proposed real estate development threatens one of Oakland’s oldest and most thriving Black businesses, Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, 410 14^th St., which has provided generations of Oaklanders with great music, great food, and a place to celebrate, to meet and sometimes to mourn.

The proposed project would increase the gentrification which accompanies the building of luxury housing and rudely defies the whole idea of a Black business and cultural district.

Another Black business, located just a few blocks away, had their building destroyed by its neighboring developers under very similar circumstances.

On Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 4 p.m., we have the chance to tell City Council that we want to do something real about Black people being forced out of Oakland by:

• Supporting and protecting Geoffrey’s;
• Honoring the meaning of a Black Business district with policies and moneyto enhance it; and
• RejectingTidewater’s destructive proposal to build yet another gentrifying high-rise.

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