Marvin K. White

The place where my mother met my father, West Oakland’s Esther’s Orbit Lounge, is long shuttered now. The cultural and social institutions that sprang up along Seventh Street made the moment feel like “Harlem of the West.” There is a storied existence in Oakland. It is buried over by unaffordable luxury apartments and gutted out of once black-owned row houses and Victorian homes. When I chose to be a writer, I didn’t know I was choosing to be an anthropologist, archaeologist, and hero.