What could Oakland look like 1,000 years from now?
In a new exhibit opening today at the Oakland Museum of California, architect June Grant challenges people to think about the future of The Town — not just within our lifetimes, but for many generations to come.
“I try not to be shackled by the weight of history, but to use history as a launch pad to fly above,” Grant said in introducing the exhibit. “You will see a vision for the year 3000 and my challenge to all of us is to look at the year 3000 and design and plan our cities for that. I challenge us to always think about not 10 years, not 15, but 1,000 or 10,000 years out … because I saw a billboard that said there are Black people in the future.”
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain, which opened today, showcases stories of Black displacement, resistance, and community in the East Bay. Featuring artifacts taken from the museum’s permanent collection along with artifacts from the Oakland History Center, the African American Museum and Library, and other historical collections, the exhibit takes viewers through decades of the Black experience. The exhibit highlights how, despite urban renewal, the aggressive use of eminent domain, and other discriminatory practices, Black East Bay residents have been able to create communities and thrive.
It also features three new installations, one of work curated by Grant, an Oakland architect; one featuring the work of Adrian Burrell, an Oakland-based multimedia artist; and one a collection of narratives from the Archive of Urban Futures and Moms 4 Housing, all of which present stories of how Black people have established themselves and built a future in the East Bay.
Oakland takes center stage along with Russell City, a largely African American and Latino community that developed 10 miles south of Oakland, in what is present-day Hayward. In the 1960s, Hayward annexed the town and evicted its residents; many of their homes went up in flames. In 2021, the city of Hayward issued a formal apology.
The exhibit begins with “Homeplace,” a display of personal artefacts, like marriage licenses, diplomas, and a suitcase that belonged to Otis Williams, who left Louisiana for Marin City in the 1940s to work at the nearby shipyards. In the next room, “Social Fabric” shows through photos and historical documents how Black people built community in Oakland and Russell City through churches, businesses, and music and entertainment. That space leads into “Dispossession and Repair,” featuring records of forced removals, like the $2,250 check one grandmother received from Alameda County to leave her Russell City home in 1966, as well as public apologies and efforts at reparation.
Visitors then enter the three new installations. Burrell, a third-generation Oakland artist, draws on his family history and legacy to summon resistance to displacement and imperialism. The central piece here is a looming installation — a tree made of bottles and tv screens, which play home videos.
“I think about the ways in which my family and community have practiced and rehearsed for this moment,” Burrell said. “The piece you see here is exhibiting some of those rehearsals and questioning, ‘How do we move and how do we create new language, and what does that mean?’”
Grant, the founder of Oakland architecture firm blink!LAB, focuses her work on bringing underrepresented perspectives to the forefront in urban design projects. Following a visit to Jamaica last year, Grant told The Oaklandside she returned to Oakland struck by the contrast between her home country and the city where she lives. Jamaica was clean, green, and lush, while the Town felt covered by “concrete, un-treed, and quite dirty.”
For her exhibit, Grant wanted to capture the pride people have for Oakland’s activist legacy, even though it may not be represented in the city’s landscape and urban design.
“What I want to come out of this exhibition is that residents in Oakland start to demand a more holistic approach to how our city is planned and managed,” she said. “And one that is really rooted in an idea of what we want this city to look like and feel like 100 years from now. Without that futuristic approach, we’re always going to be doing this bandaid of helping some but not others.”
Lori Fogarty, the museum’s CEO, said the idea for the exhibit was planted in her three years ago when she traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive an award from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. She brought along Carolyn Johnson, the CEO of Oakland’s Black Cultural Zone. Over dinner and drinks, Johnson shared her family’s story of settling in Russell City. It was the first time Fogarty had ever heard of it.
“I came back and talked to our team here and said, ‘I think we need to give this story a platform,” Fogarty said. “I thought, She is part of this multi-generational story — now she’s the CEO of the Black Cultural Zone — to just find safe Black space. And that’s what our collaborators are helping us imagine as well.”
The contribution from Archive of Urban Futures, a collaboration between UC Berkeley researchers and Moms 4 Housing, documents the history of Black people and Black power in Oakland from 1950 to the present. Viewers can walk into a life-size replica of 2928 Magnolia St., a neglected investor-owned house in West Oakland that a group of homeless mothers occupied in 2019 to highlight the affordable housing crisis — eventually gaining ownership. On one wall hangs a replication of the protocols the women followed when occupying the house: keep the door locked at all times; no drugs or weapons on the property; if law enforcement shows up, call an emergency contact and do not open the door.
In the center a case displays letters of support from prisoners at San Quentin State Prison. On another wall, a video plays of a toddler taking his first steps in the house. It’s 1-year-old Amir, the son of house resident Dominique Walker. In her remarks, Walker noted that until they were housed, her son hadn’t started to walk, because he had no furniture to pull up on.
“Once we got housing, what we were able to do was amazing. A lot of us went to college, went back to school, and got degrees,” Walker said. “I’m actually going to med school next year. It was so important to have that foundation, that housing that led to all of our successes.”
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain is on view at the Oakland Museum of California through March 1, 2026.
