West Oakland, Oakland, California

In the 1850s, a group of men who had been leasing the land from his son Vicente, Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, and Andrew J.

The original wooden train station at 16th and Wood Streets was replaced in 1912 by a large Beaux Arts structure which is still standing, though it was severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association had its West Coast headquarters at 8th and Chester Streets.

The 1940s and World War II saw a new influx of workers for the shipbuilding industry and the newly constructed Oakland Army Base and Naval Supply Center.

Mexican and Puerto Ricans also settled in West Oakland to work on the railroads, at the port, and in industry, and opened many local businesses.

In the 1950s and 1960s, urban renewal, construction of the Nimitz Freeway, and BART displaced most of the Latino community which settled in the Fruitvale and East Oakland areas.

[2] Groups of African American residents of West Oakland mobilized to resist the "urban renewal" projects during this period.

Cypress Street was renamed Mandela Parkway, a recently finished wide thoroughfare with a pedestrian path and greenway in its median, including a park commemorating the 1989 earthquake.

Environmental racism is when a particular group (most often racial minorities or those with specific disadvantages) is subject to dangerous pollutants and deprived of access to basic resources such as clean air, water, healthy groceries, etc.

In West Oakland, a case study revealed that the predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods in this area were exposed to disproportionate levels of diesel exhaust from 6,300 container trucks that frequented this route on their way to and from the Port of Oakland and a prominent US Post Office distribution center.

[3] Residents in the surrounding neighborhoods reported regular findings of diesel exhaust soot on windows and vents of their homes.