Black Spaces Matter.

The Black Liberation Walking Tour (BLWT) is a community-led cultural asset map celebrating Hoover-Foster’s multi-generational Black history and culture. It asserts resident voices and documents sites of cultural and historical significance in our neighborhood. We celebrate belonging through the 100 year narrative ribbon leading from the early West Coast civil rights movement through the second wave of the Great Migration to the Black Liberation actions of the present day.

A project of the West Oakland Cultural Action Network (WOCAN) , the BLWT captures oral histories to document the lives, art, and culture of long-time residents, historical figures, and rapidly disappearing former Black cultural spaces. We are creating this archive to mitigate cultural erasure and physical displacement. We’re galvanizing a collaborative development effort grounded in claiming community and cultural spaces by working towards the reestablishment of the Hoover-Durant Public Library branch and acquiring community controlled commercial spaces.