SENIOR STORIES
LET US NEVER AGAIN FEAR OUR NEIGHBORS​
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Minoru Sano was in his sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley when his education was interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-American families living on the West Coast. Read more....
SOCIAL CLUBS SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE
​
Mary Trahan was part of a caring and powerful network of South Berkeley community groups that had formed where friends and neighbors gathered together for fun events and organized for social justice. Read more...
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS IN SOUTH BERKELEY
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Frank and Louise Brown moved from Chicago to Berkeley in 1950, and became leading forces in community activism and education - Louise Brown was the first African-American teacher hired at Malcolm X Elementary school, back when it was called Lincoln Elementary. Read more...
NEIGHBORING THROUGH STORYTELLING
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Mary Beth Washington took on the name Orunamamu in the 1970s when she was teaching Black History in the Berkeley School System. She chose Orunamamu because it is a royal name that means Morning Star in Nigerian. Read more...
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH BERKELEY
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Ratha Watkins, while working as a cosmetologist at Lovely Lady Beauty Salon, dreamed of owning her own business. They found a vacant shop at 3312 Adeline in a building so rundown it had been condemned. Read more...
THE RUMFORD FAIR HOUSING ACT
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Byron Rumford pursued fairness. In addition to running Rumford's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street, he was the first black man to represent Northern California in the California legislature. As an assemblyman, Byron Rumford advocated for a fair housing bill. Read more...
SENIOR STORIES
LET US NEVER AGAIN FEAR OUR NEIGHBORS​
​
Minoru Sano was in his sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley when his education was interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-American families living on the West Coast. Read more....
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​​​
Frank and Louise Brown moved from Chicago to Berkeley in 1950, and became leading forces in community activism and education - Louise Brown was the first African-American teacher hired at Malcolm X Elementary school, back when it was called Lincoln Elementary. Read more...
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​
Ratha Watkins, while working as a cosmetologist at Lovely Lady Beauty Salon, dreamed of owning her own business. They found a vacant shop at 3312 Adeline in a building so rundown it had been condemned. Read more...
WWII EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
​
Gerald Carter's grandparents found him at an orphanage in Oakland in 1930. He went on to serve in the US Air Force, graduated from UC Berkeley, and had a 30 year career as a Naval Architectural Technician, working on surface craft and aircraft carriers. Read more...
SOCIAL CLUBS SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE
​
Mary Trahan was part of a caring and powerful network of South Berkeley community groups that had formed where friends and neighbors gathered together for fun events and organized for social justice. Read more...
NEIGHBORING THROUGH STORYTELLING
​
Mary Beth Washington took on the name Orunamamu in the 1970s when she was teaching Black History in the Berkeley School System. She chose Orunamamu because it is a royal name that means Morning Star in Nigerian. Read more...
THE RUMFORD FAIR HOUSING ACT
​
Byron Rumford pursued fairness. In addition to running Rumford's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street, he was the first black man to represent Northern California in the California legislature. As an assemblyman, Byron Rumford advocated for a fair housing bill. Read more...
THE EDDIE AND LEE ESTHER YOUNG FAMILY
​
Eddie and Lee Esther (Henderson) Young migrated to California from Lousiana, eagerly. Louisiana had racism, few jobs, poor education, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and many other social ills to leave behind. Lee Esther's sister, a South Berkeley resident, asked them to come to California where her husband had a job waiting at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Read more...
SENIOR STORIES
LET US NEVER AGAIN FEAR OUR NEIGHBORS​
​
Minoru Sano was in his sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley when his education was interrupted by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-American families living on the West Coast. Read more....
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​​​
Frank and Louise Brown moved from Chicago to Berkeley in 1950, and became leading forces in community activism and education - Louise Brown was the first African-American teacher hired at Malcolm X Elementary school, back when it was called Lincoln Elementary. Read more...
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH BERKELEY
​
Ratha Watkins, while working as a cosmetologist at Lovely Lady Beauty Salon, dreamed of owning her own business. They found a vacant shop at 3312 Adeline in a building so rundown it had been condemned. Read more...
WWII EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
​
Gerald Carter's grandparents found him at an orphanage in Oakland in 1930. He went on to serve in the US Air Force, graduated from UC Berkeley, and had a 30 year career as a Naval Architectural Technician, working on surface craft and aircraft carriers. Read more...
SOCIAL CLUBS SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE
​
Mary Trahan was part of a caring and powerful network of South Berkeley community groups that had formed where friends and neighbors gathered together for fun events and organized for social justice. Read more...
NEIGHBORING THROUGH STORYTELLING
​
Mary Beth Washington took on the name Orunamamu in the 1970s when she was teaching Black History in the Berkeley School System. She chose Orunamamu because it is a royal name that means Morning Star in Nigerian. Read more...
THE RUMFORD FAIR HOUSING ACT
​
Byron Rumford pursued fairness. In addition to running Rumford's Pharmacy on Sacramento Street, he was the first black man to represent Northern California in the California legislature. As an assemblyman, Byron Rumford advocated for a fair housing bill. Read more...
THE EDDIE AND LEE ESTHER YOUNG FAMILY
​
Eddie and Lee Esther (Henderson) Young migrated to California from Lousiana, eagerly. Louisiana had racism, few jobs, poor education, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and many other social ills to leave behind. Lee Esther's sister, a South Berkeley resident, asked them to come to California where her husband had a job waiting at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Read more...
BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
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Cheryl Chinn began her career at Malcolm X School as a teacher in 1983, became vice principal in 1987 and was promoted to principal in 1989. She held this position for 21 years, until her retirement in 2010. Read more...
FIDGET SPINNER X
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This school is named for civil rights leader Malcolm X, who was among many things an extraordinary communicator. He was incisive, eloquent, brutally honest, and able to move the crowd with his well written and researched speeches, which were broadcast nationally. Read more...
THE AGE OF REDLINING
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Starting in 1933, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, an institution backed by the federal government, changed lending practices across the United States. If residents of a neighborhood had a skin color other than white, the map was colored red. Read more...
VOLUNTARY SCHOOL INTEGRATION: THE CHALLENGE
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In the summer of 1967 Betty McAfee and her family moved to Berkeley from Palo Alto, largely because they wanted to be part of Berkeley's historic voluntary school desegregation effort. Read more...
A VOICE FOR JUSTICE
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Margo Norman was born on a farm in Boydsville, Missouri on April 28, 1923. Her parents, George Samuel and Mary Belle Tolson-Emerson worked as share-croppers and were strict and loving. In 1961, she bought a one-way train ticket to the Bay Area. Read more...