EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION Beginning in 1974, I photographed West Oakland for two years with the support of numerous local community organizations. It was my first photographic documentary project in California, as I had myself just arrived in 1973. I exposed hundreds of rolls of film, even though I didn't have a darkroom or place to develop or print them yet. I was twenty-three, and my photos documenting the turbulence of the late 1960s, the antiwar movement, the feminist and Black Power movements, and rural poverty had been published in the underground press of the era. What I saw in West Oakland moved me. This community, once considered the "Harlem of the West" (along with San Francisco's Fillmore District), was now considered a blight in the city of Oakland, literally cut off by urban renewal projects. The power structure was unconcerned with the current Black residents. The mayor was a Republican.

The city had experienced white flight to the suburbs. The loss of this tax base led to a decline in city services, contributing to further urban decay in communities like West Oakland. I had little support or income, living with my girlfriend, who was on welfare, and her two-year-old son and just beginning to try freelancing on my road as a documentary photographer. I had migrated to California with dreams, all my possessions packed on top of my car, one hundred dollars, and a Shell Oil card that later tagged me with seven years of bad credit. Eventually I got a part-time job doing layout and paste-up at the Oakland Post, the local Black newspaper, which gave me time during the days to cruise the streets of West Oakland. With the encouragement of community organizations, activists, and the local neighborhood arts program, I was invited into homes and churches, and I photographed life on the street. I became known as the Cameraman. People ran out of their houses waving me down to take a photo of them.

I gave them prints, which I made in a community darkroom where I paid by the hour to print and develop the film. I had recognized that there was a powerful expression of Black identity, heritage, pride, and resilience in this community, what in the 1960s was labeled as Soul. It pushed me to photograph for those two years. I showed the photos to colleagues, magazines, and some curators, and they mostly said, "Who cares about Black people in Oakland?" After two years with little interest, I stowed the negatives and proof sheets in my file cabinet, where they sat unseen as I continued doing other social-issue documentary projects that have defined my career. More than fifty years after my West Oakland photography work, the area has undergone seismic changes. Because of the neighborhood's relatively low rents, its remarkable but often neglected Victorian homes, and its proximity to San Francisco, the community has begun to attract a young white middle class. A wave of gentrification is now in full swing. Black and Latino families are being pushed out, and many newer residents don't know the history of the area.

There is still a strong presence of the old community. Lil' Bobby Hutton Park, where the Panthers used to meet, is still thriving with community festivals. Even Esther's Orbit Room, once the last vestige of music in this once bustling community, is being renovated with the hope of revitalizing the Seventh Street corridor. As a Black West Oakland resident and activist told me, "Despite gentrification, we still here." These photos, I hope, remind us that the homes and streets I visited were full of life and work, hardship and celebration. West Oakland was--and is--alive with community rooted in Soul.