EAST OAKLAND FUTURES FEST: REIMAGINING DEEP EAST OAKLAND CULTURAL CORRIDOR
A MAGICAL DAY ON THE SCRAPER BIKE WAY
It was the perfect East Oakland day. The sun warmly shone as neighbors laughed and shared stories. Frankie Beverly and Maze played faintly in the background. The smells of warm peach cobbler, homemade backyard barbeque, and hot asphalt filled the air. The sounds, smells, and sights brought me back to my grandmother’s block on the first day of summer. This experience, new and magical, is the East Oakland Futures Fest.
Over 500 people joined the inaugural block party on Scraper Bike Way during Liberation Weekend — a weekend of Juneteenth events organized by the Black Cultural Zone.
The neighborhood was nurtured and offered a range of activities that were centered on care. Free yoga, soothing sound healing, and nourishing vegan meals were provided, creating a sense of community well-being. Music and dance performances, reflective of the culture, uplifted spirits and created spaces for joy. Inspired by Toni Morrison and bell hooks, who emphasized the healing power of communal care and that true self-care thrives within the support of a community, the neighborhood embraced the importance of collective well-being.
The streets came to life with eight festival zones, dozens of Black vendors and exhibitors, acclaimed local artists painting on-site, African-inspired face painting, and so much more. Imagine the scene: people stepping outside their doors, going about their daily routines, and suddenly immersing themselves in this experience. Those returning from their weekly grocery shopping are greeted with soothing vibrations of sound healing. Even those who simply went outside for a walk made their way home with free books and produce.
Yes, the planning and organization of the festival ensured that those who had anticipated attending were not disappointed. However, there was an added layer of enchantment for those who may not have been aware of the event, allowing them to stumble upon and participate in the celebration. It was a moment when the neighborhood’s care and devotion to communal well-being reached even those who hadn’t planned to join but found themselves swept up in the celebration of life innate to East Oakland.
As the festival unfolded, The Original Scraper Bike Team, the very namesake of the street we stood on, rode their creatively customized bikes through the event, taking their rightful space. Their presence marked the ultimate intention of the street — freedom of movement and celebration of culture, a testament to the power of community-driven initiatives and the resilience and creativity that thrives in East Oakland.
HOW EAST OAKLAND FUTURES FEST IS A LOVE LETTER TO MY MATRIARCHS AND THE BLACK BAY AREA
My name is Brytanee Brown, and I am an urban planner, spatial activist, connector, curator, and the founder of the East Oakland Futures Fest. I carry my family’s legacy, a lineage shaped by resistance and resilience. I am the daughter of Kendra, who is the daughter of Gwendolyn, who is the daughter of Elzora, who journeyed from Point, Texas, to Berkeley, California, seeking refuge from the oppressive Jim Crow South. By the time she transitioned to the afterlife, she had acquired several properties in Oakland and Berkeley with her husband, Leonard, to provide permanent affordable housing for our family. We bought homes in disinvested, redlined communities, stewarded them, and then lost them through racist housing policies that led to gentrification.
When I decided to join the City of Oakland as a transportation planner, I understood that my work would be in service to my family’s legacy and the collective experience of Black people in the Bay Area whose decades-long history by way of their homes, their storefronts, and their memories have been systematically stripped away. Moreover, since the neighborhoods I grew up in had long been deemed unaffordable, I understood the urgency of prioritizing East Oakland and equitable development.
For me, East Oakland Futures Fest is not just an event; it is my call to other planning practitioners and spatial activists to abandon the notion of selling ideas to the community and instead work alongside them to help them shape their future. It is a reminder to my peers in the planning space that every planning process is an opportunity to share tools, gain wisdom, and co-create a vision that reflects the community’s true needs.
For my community, Black people in the Bay Area, East Oakland Futures Fest recognizes that healing rarely happens in isolation. For us to heal, we have to return. Our quest as Black people living through gentrification and displacement has to be experienced in community, although displacement is a hyper-individualistic capitalistic project. Those of us who have been displaced must make a conscious effort to return to the communities that still stand. Most importantly, we have to be in solidarity with those who fight to remain.
We’re here to stay, reclaim our spaces, and shape a future that honors our heritage and nurtures our collective well-being.
THE WORK CONTINUES …
In East Oakland, the conditions for self-expression, mutual respect, empathy, and acceptance are undermined by systemic racism and oppression. These conditions are both exacerbated and reinforced in the built environment. Yet, East Oaklanders have found ways to cultivate a sense of belonging in their communities.
East Oakland Futures Fest intends to capture that radical existence — celebrating East Oakland as it exists today and envisioning a future where Black people thrive in Oakland, the Bay Area, and beyond.
Futures Fest exemplifies what a thriving cultural corridor can potentially look and feel like. Cultural corridors, an emerging concept among spatial activists, are city streets that bring in direct services to support residents and businesses. Cultural corridors challenge the dominant planning narrative that “open streets” and “complete streets” will address the issues Black and Brown communities face when it comes to transportation and mobility. Yes, upgraded curb ramps and installing crosswalks matter, but what else and who else could we be thinking about? In fact, The Scraper Bike Way is a great example of this, in spite of it being driven by and focused on street and vacant lots activations that uplift community safety, culture, and economic development.
In 2019, Oakland Department of Transportation and The Scraper Bike Team worked on the first-of-its-kind centerlane repaving project up the 90th Avenue corridor to provide more safe, sustainable community-driven infrastructure for cyclists and community members.
On the OakDOT planning team, we knew that installing a center bike line would require input and ideas from everybody along 90th Avenue, whether you’re on bike, foot, skateboard, or car. This sort of infrastructure requires engaging with the community on the potential uses and benefits of bringing this new addition to the street — like East Oakland Futures Fest. We’re rarely given opportunities to define our needs and vision for our own communities, which is a positive step in the right direction.
The East Oakland Futures Fest is a half-day street closure that serves as a creative and safe approach to using the streets. Together, we embody a future of East Oakland with a built environment that is supportive of the Black experience. We hope to see you there June 3rd, 2023!
