By Ipeleng Kgositsile

When I first landed in Oakland, California in June 2002, all I wanted to do was cry. It felt lifeless and looked like an urban war zone. I sure was surprised.

See, I'm from a generation that remembers Oakland as one of this country's inspirational Chocolate Cities. It gained worldwide recognition with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. Acts like The Pointer Sisters, Tony Toni Tone, Too Short, Hammer, and En Vogue, tore up the musical charts in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

It was a beautiful time. Why? As writer Ishmael Reed puts it in Blues City, "From the seventies through the nineties, there was a black mayor, a black symphony conductor, a black museum head, black members of the black city council, and, in Robert Maynard, the only black publisher of a major news daily."

But the city's success as an epicenter of Black Power did not hold. That first summer I spent in the Bay Area, my only reminder of its lush African-American history was a building I passed on my way to work: The tallish skyscraper named for Oakland's Ron Dellums, freedom fighter and former US congressman, on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland City Hall.

These days I find Oakland a little less depressing.

I owe this, in part, to something else Reed once wrote. Buildings alone don't make a city. Its people do. One of those people is Aunt Jackie. The other night, she calls from San Jose. I'm glad. I have questions---lots of them. For the past couple of days, I've been inundated with research about black bars in Oakland because I'm supposed to be writing about them for whatchusay.com. My research paints this glorious picture of Seventh Street in West Oakland during the 1940s and ‘50s. But like so much of Oakland that is abandoned, desolate, and barren, the idea of a Seventh Street as a hotbed of music, electric cars, and foxy ladies in high heels, is truly hard to imagine.

"Aunt Jackie," I ask. "Do you remember Seventh Street? Did you and my mother ever hang out in the clubs?"
"Naw."
"Well, did you ever sneak into them?"
"Naw. They were doing the honky-tonk in those places. We would never embarrass our parents like that."

I'm pretty sure Aunt Jackie knows I'm wearing a smirk on the other end of the phone. I spent much of my teens and twenties as a party girl and writer soaking up nightlife on the East Coast. Even in my thirties, I'm still fascinated with the culture. Nightlife's characters – music, fashion, art, and people—play very interesting roles in the development of pop culture. They're also the pulses of our society because what happens in local bars, nightclubs, and lounges tells us what's going on in a community at the social, political, cultural, and economic level at any given point in time.

Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the social clubs, cocktail lounges, and juke joints lining Seventh Street during the 1940s and ‘50s. What do they tell us? That there was a great influx of African-Americans from such Southern states as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. That the men worked in shipyards at the Port of Oakland. That some of the shipyard workers were blues musicians, who had brought their families and instruments with them. And with their instruments, they created musical history. As a result, the West Coast Blues was born in Oakland. Fast-forward, today. Of these bars, Esther's Orbit Room, on 7th and Wood, is the only one still standing.

I'm mad.

Even in Harlem, where one can't buy a home for less than a million dollars, the neighborhood's cultural history has not been entirely wiped out. Then I remember. Buildings alone don't make a city. Its people do.

Oakland's people are hopeful and making noise. It's in the bluesy music of Oakland-based artists like Meshell Ndegeocello, Goapele, and Ledisi. It's in the Mo' Betta Farmer's Market on Mandela Parkway. It's in the photo-montages-slash-woodcarvings of Keba Konte. It's in the spirit of Tony Toni Tone's Dwayne Wiggins---he's done great work as a businessman committed to the arts community in his hometown.
Wiggins is not alone. The creative energy of this city's people is also captured in its bar scene. It's reflected in the jukebox selection at Esther's. It's felt while hanging out with the locals playing pool, sipping cocktails, singing karaoke, dancing, and talking shit in this city's modern-day juke joints. I am of course, referring to such local watering holes as Dorsey's Locker Room, the Fifth Amendment, The Serenader, Cable's Reef, and Art's Crab Shack.

I've been proven wrong. Buildings alone don't make a city. Its people do. Though Oakland is depressed, there is life and energy brewing here. It's not brimming off the pavement like a New York City minute. But it's here. And so long as I'm here, and there's a whatchusay.com, I'll be documenting how it shows up via the city's black bar scene.

That's the purpose of Dive.

Ipeleng Kgositsile is a student, writer, and waitress living in Oakland.

Blog On! – Do buildings make a city? Are all of our "Chocolate Cities" like Oakland, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Atlanta really losing their soul? Whatchusay!