Commentary

Profile: Sydney Kamlager Carries the Weight of All Black Women in California Senate

Kamlager says her office used the Budget Act of 2021 to help fund local programs, including art, healthcare and housing initiatives. About $400 million of the state’s $267.1 billion budget this year supports projects to which Kamlager and her team helped steer funding.

Published

4 years ago

July 30, 2021

Isabelle Price

Sen. Sydney Kamlager

In a faded photo from 1975, is a smiling woman, a formerly enslaved person, sporting a metallic gray birthday hat. In front of her is a 3-year-old state Sen. Sydney Kamlager.

“Gram was born a slave and freed by Lincoln. She carried her papers to prove her freedom every day of her life,” the California Senator tweeted, sharing her great-great grandmother’s photo with her followers.

Kamlager, the only Black woman serving in the California Senate, spoke with California Black Media about her career, what inspires her and the priorities she has fought for since her term began.

“It is a heavy and awesome responsibility, feeling like I am speaking for millions of women like me,” Kamlager said, talking about being the only Black woman in the state Senate.

“I don’t take it lightly and I’m trying to get more of us in there,” she said.

Kamlager says her great-great-grandmother is one of her greatest inspirations.

“When she was born, she was not free, and her DNA is inside of me. That’s the thing that motivates me, that this woman in my family was strong enough to live through that circumstance. It’s something that I wake up and think about every day,” said Kamlager.

Kamlager attributes her success to her parents and counts them as another source of inspiration.

“My parents were social justice activists in Chicago, fighting to make sure that community members had access to healthcare and housing,” she said. “I come from a family that was denied housing because they were interracial.”

Her life in public service started in Chicago, she says.

“I got my first taste of politics helping my grandmother work to get Harold Washington elected as the first Black mayor of Chicago,” Kamlager recalled.

She left Chicago to attend the University of Southern California. She was there when the 1992 Los Angeles riots broke out. That experience helped strengthen her resolve to enter public life, she says.

“It was the first time I saw what happens when a city stops listening to its communities,” she said. “The next summer, I spent time working to figure out how we could both rebuild L.A. and build bridges between communities.”

Kamlager’s journey to becoming a California elected official began in 2017 when she threw her hat in the race to complete the term of former Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. The next year, she won the special election in the 54^th district and was sworn into office in April.

Then, in November 2020, she announced her run for the state Senate when former Sen. Holly Mitchell resigned. Kamlager won that special election in March.

Now, as the state Senator representing the 30th District, criminal justice, health care, housing and racial equity are among Kamlager’s priorities.

“I spend a lot of time in the criminal justice space. I have a number of bills this year that focus on criminal and legal issues,” Kamlager said.

“One is AB 333 which is a due process bill as it relates to gang enhancement charges. Another bill AB 127 got signed into law by the governor this Monday which says that prosecutors can also attest to an arrest warrant of a police officer involved in a police shooting. And ACA 3 which is about taking involuntary servitude out of the state Constitution,” she continued.

The Senator also spoke about economics and how it impacts the lives of Black Californians.

“It is incredibly important to talk about the economics of Black America and Black California and to connect that to issues of housing, transportation, jobs and education,” Kamlager said.

For her, an important part of the Black economic power conversation is reparations.

“I’ve been incredibly supportive of the reparations task force that is moving along and making sure that some of these things get agendized,” she said.

Kamlager mentioned the ongoing inequity in the medical sector, an issue that the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare.

“I introduced a number of implicit bias bills to have training in our medical community because we saw who was getting treated and who wasn’t,” she said.

“I was very active in this year’s budget negotiations,” Kamlager continued. “I was instrumental in the work to get $30 million to our public hospitals, which we know were Ground Zero for so many of the COVID cases.”

Childcare providers were heroes who stepped up during the pandemic, she says. They took care of children as their essential worker parents soldiered on to make sure the economy and health care systems kept running.

Another one of her priorities is housing equity through efforts like Project Room Key, a state program created in response to the pandemic. It provides motel and hotel rooms for people experiencing homelessness.

Programs like that expose some of the same inequities they were designed to diminish, Kamlager points out.

“With Project Room Key, the majority of the homeless individuals that got placed during the pandemic were white, homeless individuals even though we know 62% of the folks who are homeless are Black,” she said.

The senator also addressed the rise of hate crimes.

“We can elevate the issues of African Americans when we are on the floor giving speeches,” she continued. “We have done that. We will do that. But there is an element of fear that is predicated on the history of this country, and it’s based on the fact that Black people, one, are feared, and two, are not valued.”

“Legislation doesn’t fix that, she added. “It is the collective energy and voices of Black Californians, Black Americans and their allies elevating those discrepancies and disparities so that folks are able to reflect on them.”

Isabelle Price

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Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

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

Published

1 week ago

November 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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

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

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2 weeks ago

November 3, 2025

Oakland Post

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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

3 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