At age 80, Elaine Brown has no intention to stop building a better Bay Area, literally. In the East Bay, one woman has been doing that for decades, and at the age of 80, has no intention to stop. On 7th and Campbell in West Oakland, it's all about building.
Not just this new apartment building. But legacy, community and wealth. She is the woman behind the building going up, and she named it The Black Panther. Huey P. Newton's life, legacy, and love through the eyes of his widow Fredrika. Elaine Brown served as chair of the Black Panther Party, an organization founded in Oakland in , dedicated to fighting for housing, health care, food, employment and education for the Black community.
Now Brown says that work will continue in this building. Between the 's and 's, 7th street in West Oakland competed with San Francisco's Fillmore district for the title of Harlem of the West with its bustling music scene black owned businesses.
But several urban renewal projects uprooted the black community. For more than 30 years, the lot where the building is going up now stayed vacant until the nonprofit Brown founded, Oakland and the World Enterprises, got a license from the city of Oakland to develop it.
Brown set her sights on a building with businesses and affordable housing. The biggest challenge? Its 80 million dollar price tag. But I forced my way into the system to get enough money to do this.
