Activism

How to Help Black Organizing Project’s Fight to Remove Police from OUSD

Published

5 years ago

June 10, 2020

BOP Director of Organizing, Jessica Black (front), and BOP member leader Desiree Mims (back) at a protest outside of school board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge's home in West Oakland on Fri., June 5. Photo by Ryan Sin, courtesy of BOP.

Black Organizing Project (BOP) could reach a goal on June 24 that they have worked toward since 2011: eliminating school police in Oakland’s Unified School District (OUSD), the only district in Alameda County with its own police force.

They are calling on Oakland residents to help them in their final push.

“What is it going to take for this school district to realize the murders [by police] that we are witnessing of our people in the streets are the same police who are in the schools?” asked BOP Director of organizing, Jessica Black, speaking to uproarious cheers from a crowd of around 8,000 at an Oakland protest against policing and a city and county imposed a curfew on June 3.

Black then said just three months earlier, on March 3, Oakland’s school board rejected a measure by one vote that would have drastically cut Oakland Schools Police Department’s (OSPD) budget.

Board members Amy Eng, Shanti Gonzales, and Roseann Torres voted to approve the measure, but Gary Yee, James Harris, Jody London and Jumoke Hinton Hodge voted against it.

Since police officer Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd sparked protests, riots, and rebellions in Minneapolis which brought defunding and even dismantling police forces into the mainstream national conversation, BOP’s mission has found much wider, louder support.

The Oakland Education Association, Asians for Black Lives, Oakland Not for Sale, the Anti-Police Terror Project, Gender and Sexualities Alliance Network, Critical Resistance, Oakland Public Education Network and many Oakland residents, especially teachers, counselors and social workers, have been vocal in their support of BOP’s mission lately.

BOP is now calling on Oaklanders to call, e-mail, and write letters to school board members, especially the four who voted against the previous measure and OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, before the final school board meeting on June 24 to demand that they approve a new, more radical measure submitted by Torres and Gonzales called George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate OSPD.

“We can’t let off pressure,” said BOP Executive Director Jackie Byers. “We need those votes. And then on the 24th…[we need people] to get on the Zoom meeting, make public comments or speak to the agenda item.”

Readers can also submit comments during the school board meeting today, June 10.

Torres, who co-wrote the resolution, suggests people should sign up at 5:30 p.m. for public comment and then can watch the meeting or log off till 7:30 p.m. when comments can be heard.

Courtesy of Oakland Education Association.

She says readers can sign up again at 5:30 p.m. on June 24 to speak at 7:30 p.m. for public comment, but they will also have the ability to speak directly to the agenda item that night.

It is unclear at this point when that agenda item will come up, but readers can link with BOP’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts for the latest info on how to help.

The bill would eliminate OSPD, removing police officers entirely from Oakland schools. It would be the culmination of a nearly decade-long battle that was sparked by the killing of Raheim Brown, Jr. on Jan 22, 2011, by OSPD Sgt. Barhim Bhatt outside of a school dance at Skyline High School. Bhatt claimed he shot Brown five times because Brown attacked another sergeant at the scene, Johnathan Bellusa, with a screwdriver. But Bellusa later claimed Bhatt may have fired unnecessarily and that OUSD prevented a proper investigation.

OSPD’s website lists that it has around 20 police officers and around 120 school security officers (SSO) but BOP says due to cuts in recent years, that number is now around 10 police officers and 60 SSOs.

All of these employees serve under Police Chief Jeff Godown, an officer who served in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots.

SSOs have some documented history of use-of-force on minors.

In 2014, there were two separate incidents caught on camera. At Oakland High School an SSO punched a student four times who uses a wheelchair and has cerebral palsy after an altercation over the student possibly skipping class. The SSO was later convicted on one felony count of assault.

SSO officers in Fremont High School put another 15-year-old student in a chokehold, dragged him, and exchanged punches with him.

But BOP says overt acts of violence are not the only threat to students that police systems in schools pose.

Black students, especially, experience more subtle forms of damage from the punitive system that police-based models foster. While suspension rates for Black students have fallen in recent years, they still get suspended at a rate about three times higher than non-Black students.

“Black students aren’t seen in the way that white children are,” said Byers. “They’re seen as a threat from a very early age.”

Byers said the very presence of police brings trauma to Black students.

“Our students don’t feel safe when they’re around law enforcement in the way white students might feel safe,’ she said. “[They’re] constantly barraged with a reality and imagery of law enforcement murdering Black people, including young people…those images are in the psyche of Black students.”

Byers also said many Black students who live in public housing and use public transportation more often than white students are forced to interact with law enforcement constantly, as both BART and the public housing authority have their own police force.

When police are in schools as well, it becomes yet another site of trauma.

Jasmine Williams, BOP’s communications manager, said eliminating OSPD would mean eliminating all police officers and the school police chief. Funding from those cuts could be used “for hiring additional school-based counseling/mental/behavior health staff,” according to BOP’s People’s Plan for Police Free Schools.

“Counselors and therapists won’t have to rely on security to react to adolescent behavior,” said Williams.

SSOs would be retrained and transformed into peacekeepers, or school climate specialists. They would no longer wear uniforms. They have never been armed and they would continue not to be armed.

Williams said she’s heard reports from principals, teachers and students that some current SSOs have positive relationships with students and act as mentions. But the structure is not in place to encourage those relationships in a widespread way.

“If you say these people can act as mentors let’s support that and not create a punitive model,” said Williams.

Zack Haber

Posts by Zack Haber

Up Next

COMMENTARY: Framing the Moment

Don't Miss

Black Rage is Justified – Statement from the Brotherhood of Elders Network

Zack Haber

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

Published

13 hours ago

November 7, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

Published

4 days ago

November 3, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Past, Present, Possible! Oakland Residents Invited to Reimagine the 980 Freeway

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Published

2 weeks ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Hundreds of residents in West Oakland were forced out by eminent domain before construction began on the 980 freeway in 1968. Courtesy photo.

By Randolph Belle
Special to The Post

Join EVOAK!, a nonprofit addressing the historical harm to West Oakland since construction of the 980 freeway began in 1968, will hold a block party on Oct. 25 at Preservation Park for a day of imagination and community-building from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Activities include:

Interactive Visioning: Site mapping, 3-D/digital modeling, and design activities to reimagine housing, parks, culture, enterprise, and mobility.
Story & Memory: Oral history circles capturing life before the freeway, the rupture it caused, and visions for repair.
Data & Policy: Exhibits on health, environment, wealth impacts, and policy discussions.
Culture & Reflection: Films, installations, and performances honoring Oakland’s creativity and civic power.

The site of the party – Preservation Park – itself tells part of the story of the impact on the community. Its stately Victorians were uprooted and relocated to the site decades ago to make way for the I-980 freeway, which displaced hundreds of Black families and severed the heart of West Oakland. Now, in that same space, attendees will gather to reckon with past harms, honor the resilience that carried the community forward, and co-create an equitable and inclusive future.

A Legacy of Resistance

In 1979, Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post News Group and then a 36-year-old civil-rights organizer, defiantly planted himself in front of a bulldozer on Brush Street to prevent another historic Victorian home from being flattened for the long-delayed I-980 Freeway. Refusing to move, Cobb was arrested and hauled off in handcuffs—a moment that landed him on the front page of the Oakland Tribune.

Cobb and his family had a long history of fighting for their community, particularly around infrastructure projects in West Oakland. In 1954, his family was part of an NAACP lawsuit challenging the U.S. Post Office’s decision to place its main facility in the neighborhood, which wiped out an entire community of Black residents.

In 1964, they opposed the BART line down Seventh Street—the “Harlem of the West.” Later, Cobb was deeply involved in successfully rerouting the Cypress Freeway out of the neighborhood after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

The 980 Freeway, a 1.6-mile stretch, created an ominous barrier severing West Oakland from Downtown. Opposition stemmed from its very existence and the national practice of plowing freeways through Black communities with little input from residents and no regard for health, economic, or social impacts. By the time Cobb stood before the bulldozer, construction was inevitable, and his fight shifted toward jobs and economic opportunity.

Fast-forward 45 years: Cobb recalled the story at a convening of “Super OGs” organized to gather input from legacy residents on reimagining the corridor. He quickly retrieved his framed Tribune front page, adding a new dimension to the conversation about the dedication required to make change. Themes of harm repair and restoration surfaced again and again, grounded in memories of a thriving, cohesive Black neighborhood before the freeway.

The Lasting Scar

The 980 Freeway was touted as a road to prosperity—funneling economic opportunity into the City Center, igniting downtown commerce, and creating jobs. Instead, it cut a gash through the city, erasing 503 homes, four churches, 22 businesses, and hundreds of dreams. A promised second approach to the Bay Bridge never materialized.

Planning began in the late 1940s, bulldozers arrived in 1968, and after years of delays and opposition, the freeway opened in 1985. By then, Oakland’s economic engines had shifted, leaving behind a 600-foot-wide wound that resulted in fewer jobs, poorer health outcomes, and a divided neighborhood. The harm of displacement and loss of generational wealth was compounded through redlining, disinvestment, drugs, and the police state. Many residents fled to outlying cities, while those who stayed carried forward the spirit of perseverance.

The Big Picture

At stake now is up to 67 acres of new, buildable land in Downtown West Oakland. This time, we must not repeat the institutional wrongs of the past. Instead, we must be as deliberate in building a collective, equitable vision as planners once were in destroying communities.

EVOAK!’s strategy is rooted in four pillars: health, housing, economic development, and cultural preservation. These were the very foundations stripped away, and they are what they aim to reclaim. West Oakland continues to suffer among the worst social determinants of health in the region, much of it linked to the three freeways cutting through the neighborhood.

The harms of urban planning also decimated cultural life, reinforced oppressive public safety policies, underfunded education, and fueled poverty and blight.

Healing the Wound

West Oakland was once the center of Black culture during the Great Migration—the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and home to the “School of Champions,” the mighty Warriors of McClymonds High. Drawing on that legacy, we must channel the community’s proud past into a bold, community-led future that restores connection, sparks innovation, and uplifts every resident.

Two years ago, Caltrans won a federal Reconnecting Communities grant to fund Vision 980, a community-driven study co-led by local partners. Phase 1 launched in Spring 2024 with surveys and outreach; Phase 2, a feasibility study, begins in 2026. Over 4,000 surveys have already been completed. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could transform the corridor into a blank slate—making way for accessible housing, open space, cultural facilities, and economic opportunity for West Oakland and the entire region.

Leading with Community

In parallel, EVOAK! is advancing a community-led process to complement Caltrans’ work. EVOAK! is developing a framework for community power-building, quantifying harm, exploring policy and legislative repair strategies, structuring community governance, and hosting arts activations to spark collective imagination. The goal: a spirit of co-creation and true collaboration.

What EVOAK! Learned So Far

Through surveys, interviews, and gatherings, residents have voiced their priorities: a healthy environment, stable housing, and opportunities to thrive. Elders with decades in the neighborhood shared stories of resilience, community bonds, and visions of what repair should look like.

They heard from folks like Ezra Payton, whose family home was destroyed at Eighth and Brush streets; Ernestine Nettles, still a pillar of civic life and activism; Tom Bowden, a blues man who performed on Seventh Street as a child 70 years ago; Queen Thurston, whose family moved to West Oakland in 1942; Leo Bazille who served on the Oakland City Council from 1983 to 1993; Herman Brown, still organizing in the community today; Greg Bridges, whose family’s home was picked up and moved in the construction process; Martha Carpenter Peterson, who has a vivid memory of better times in West Oakland; Sharon Graves, who experienced both the challenges and the triumphs of the neighborhood; Lionel Wilson, Jr., whose family were anchors of pre-freeway North Oakland; Dorothy Lazard, a resident of 13th Street in the ’60s and font of historical knowledge; Bishop Henry Williams, whose simple request is to “tell the truth,” James Moree, affectionately known as “Jimmy”; the Flippin twins, still anchored in the community; and Maxine Ussery, whose father was a business and land owner before redlining.

EVOAK! will continue to capture these stories and invites the public to share theirs as well.

Beyond the Block Party

The 980 Block Party is just the beginning. Beyond this one-day event, EVOAK! Is building a long-term process to ensure West Oakland’s future is shaped by those who lived its past. To succeed, EVOAK! Is seeking partners across the community—residents, neighborhood associations, faith groups, and organizations—to help connect with legacy residents and host conversations.

980 Block Party Event Details
Saturday, Oct. 25
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland, CA 94612
980BlockParty.org
info@evoak.org