By investing in Black educators, majority Black schools, early childhood education, and youth development, Oakland’s Rise East initiative hopes to create a zone where Black youth and their families can thrive.
The $100 million Rise East initiative grew out of efforts by a variety of community groups to respond to years of disinvestment in the area and an exodus of Black families from East Oakland. Over the next 10 years, the Rise East initiative seeks to rebuild the area and address disparities faced by Black residents there.
Blue Meridian Partners, a national philanthropic group, selected Oakland for a $50 million matching grant, on the expectation that local fundraising efforts will raise another $50 million. The project is led by Oakland Thrives, a body of officials representing local public institutions, and the 40-by-40 Council, a collaboration between the East Oakland Youth Development Center, the Brotherhood of Elders Network, the Black Cultural Zone, and Roots Community Health Center.
Rise East’s focus is the region of East Oakland known as the “40 by 40,” which stretches from Seminary Avenue to the San Leandro border, south of MacArthur Boulevard.
“In this 40-by-40-block area, you have a disproportionate level of things like asthma, diabetes, gunshot wounds, and over-policing, and you also have the highest concentration of Black residents remaining in the city of Oakland,” said Selena Wilson, the CEO of East Oakland Youth Development Center and one of the initiative’s stewards — a term the group uses for its leaders to signal that it’s a collaborative, not hierarchical, process. “So while we think it’s critically important to have strategies that are focused on the entire city of Oakland, as a 40-by-40 council, we are focusing our efforts on this place-based strategy.”
The Rise East plan focuses on five areas for investment: education, health, work, housing, and public safety. Work in the other arenas is also underway.
The education platform, called “Learn & Grow,” is slated to receive about $9.5 million of the Rise East funds to improve educational outcomes and youth well-being.
The Learn & Grow group has been examining academic data and holding monthly meetings to brainstorm ideas about what’s needed to foster strong educational outcomes for Black youth in deep East Oakland.
On Tuesday, dozens of community members — representing early childhood education, private and public schools, and local nonprofits and community organizations — gathered at Parker Community Resource Center to unveil the plan they’ve been developing over the last year.
The session began with a tribute to Marvin Boomer, a Castlemont High School educator who was killed by a driver fleeing California Highway Patrol officers in May. Boomer had attended Rise East planning meetings, said Greg Hodge, CEO of the Brotherhood of Elders Network, and Boomer was particularly engaged in ensuring that Black boys in East Oakland would have the skills and opportunities to succeed after high school.
Then the Learn & Grow team presented a four-part strategy that came out of its consultative process, one that would address early childhood education, support Black educators and predominantly Black schools, connect youth with East Oakland resources, and build an entrepreneurship hub to serve Black youth.
But the work hasn’t been without hurdles, especially given the Trump administration’s hostility toward programs that promote equity.
“Anyone trying to do work that centers marginalized communities right now is challenged,” Wilson told The Oaklandside. “We’re in a climate politically where we’re not only having work defunded across systems, from threats of the Department of Education being shut down, to our communities being threatened by ICE raids and attacks on leaders doing this work.”
A youth-led strategy
Including youth as stewards was essential to developing Rise East’s education strategy. Aaliyah Lowe, a second-year student at Sacramento State University, grew up in East Oakland, where she attended Aspire College Academy and Bay Area Technology School. She got involved in Rise East through her work with Higher Ground, a youth and community development organization in Oakland.
“Our root problem was that youth were underutilizing their resources,” Lowe told The Oaklandside. “Different programs around Oakland they wouldn’t go to because either they couldn’t make it, didn’t have a ride, didn’t feel safe, or didn’t trust it.”
Youth leaders proposed the creation of an app listing community centers and other neighborhood resources where young people can get involved, pointing them to places like the East Oakland Youth Development Center or Youth UpRising. The group also proposed a private bus line, where youth lacking transportation could hop on and get a ride to various youth centers.
Lowe said that during her own teenage years, she experienced a lack of programs available to her outside of school.
“I feel like I had everything I needed in elementary school,” she said. “When I got older, I could see the decline in care, in the staff, and the programs that were offered. I didn’t see programs like that in high school.”
The idea of the platform’s entrepreneurship hub is to offer guidance and resources to Black youth in East Oakland who are looking to start their own businesses.
The plan’s focus on Black educators and Black schools includes strategies for supporting positive educational spaces for Black youth, bolstering standards for Black educators, and supporting Black schools. For example, the Rise East initiative plans to offer scholarships for more families to attend Ile Omode, Oakland’s only Black-centered school modeled after African cultural principals. Founded in 1986, Ile Omode is an independent school with an all-Black staff that serves students from preschool to eighth grade.
“Instead of us trying to create a brand new Black school for Black children, we should be investing in this community asset that is Ile Omode,” Bonisile Ikemba, the school’s associate director, told The Oaklandside. “How can we make the Ile Omode experience accessible to more Black families who may not be able to afford it?”
Research has shown that having Black teachers can lead to positive academic outcomes for Black students. Rise East hopes to create a hub for Black educators to share best practices, as well as develop a set of standards Black parents and families can use to evaluate teachers.
The platform’s early childhood education plank will focus on supporting family, friend, and neighborhood caregivers — the workforce comprised largely of women of color who provide home-based care.
“For early care, we have options that don’t necessarily align with what families need,” said Kym Johnson, the CEO of Bananas, an Oakland-based childcare referral and resource organization. “So we were looking at our informal caregivers, who provide such needed, rich early care experiences.”
Rise East’s investments will offer professional development for these providers.
“We also recognized there weren’t enough safe spaces here in the 40-by-40 for folks to gather, to play, to get resources, and have joyful experiences,” Johnson said. So Rise East will also fund the development of East Oakland family zones — one-stop resource centers where families can visit a food pantry, pick up diapers, get basic health care, and socialize with other families.
Over the next few months, these ideas will be further refined and presented for approval to Rise East’s governance team, which includes business and community leaders and public officials. In January, pilot programs will launch, Wilson said. For anyone who wants to get involved in these efforts, the Rise East website has an interest form community members can fill out.
“While this is a huge milestone, it’s really the beginning for us,” Wilson told The Oaklandside. “We’re really committed to the long haul of ensuring that we continue to seek investment in this community that’s been disinvested in for decades and decades. This is really a down payment.”
