Born in 1826, James de Fremery was a rich merchant who immigrated to California from the Netherlands. He first set foot in San Francisco at the age of 23 and at that time was a commission merchant. He married Virginie Therese Herckenrath, daughter of wealthy Dutch merchant Leon Herckenrath and his wife Juliette Louisa McCormick de Magnan and the oldest of 15. Leon was theConsul of the Netherlands in charge of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and his&nbsp;wife was a former slave who he had purchased when she was 11 years old.&nbsp;James de Fremery founded the Savings Union Bank of San Francisco (which eventually became Wells Fargo) and owned large amounts of real estate in Oakland. He was also president of the Chamber of Commerce, involved in the Savings and Loan Society, the Giant Powder Company, the American Sugar Refining Company, and even the railroads. de Fremery died of heart disease with an estimated estate of $100,000 and $500,000 or $100 million and $500 million today.&nbsp;

A Black and white shot of the house (date unknown).

Website

The de Fremery House was built in 1864 in a Gothic Revival Style as the home of James de Fremery and his family. The house, which became known as "The Grove", was originally part of the Rancho San Antonio land grant. James de Fremery lived in the home up to his death in 1899 but his family members lived in the until the property was sold to the City of Oakland in 1910. The house is now used as the de Fremery Recreation Center. The de Fremery House was designated as an Oakland Landmark 
On November 17, 1981.

de Fremery House

Originally called The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California, in November of 1966, by Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Elbert Howard, Reggie Forte, Bobby Hutton, and Sherman Forte, as a sort of militia for the fight against civil rights. They believed that self-defense and mass organizing was the best way to tackle the problem of equality and civil justice the Black community had. In November of 1966, Huey Lewis, Bobby Seale, Elbert Howard, Reggie Forte, Sherman Forte, and Bobby Hutton came together in Oakland, California, to form the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, later known only as the Black Panther Party, changing the face of civil rights forever. Pulling from Malcolm X's philosophies, the Black Panther Party started with a strong sense of militant force, believing that self-defense, organization of mass protests, and resistance, would set African Americans equally free. In October 1967, Huey Newton was arrested for killing an Oakland police officer and his fellow Panthers initiated the "free Huey" movement. This gave them notoriety and spread the word of their organization nationwide, creating more Black Panther chapters. As the Black Panthers grew, they became known for supporting free health clinics, free breakfast programs for school children, and a variety of other community programs. They also provided support for African American men who had concerns about the draft during the Vietnam Era and spoke about the need to provide economic support for Black communities. At the height of their fame, The Black Panther Party had only a few thousand official members owing to the rigorous vetting process and time-consuming training and educational programs. However, the Black Panthers had a much more significant impact on history than their relatively small membership thanks to the media attention they received, their outspoken opponents, and the many supporters of their programs that extended into dozens of communities.

At this location in June 1967, the Anti-Poverty Center began working with a group of local activists who would soon be known as the Black Panther Party. Together, these young men organized in response to the danger posed by speeding traffic at this formerly-unmarked intersection. The Black Panthers and the Anti-Poverty Center asked the city to install a stoplight after several children at the nearby Santa Fe Elementary School were killed and others had been injured by motorists. However, the Oakland City Council denied the request. Rather than allowing another death at this intersection until the city would agree to install a light, members of the Black Panthers directed traffic at this intersection. The young men also escorted children across the busy intersection, and no further automobile-related deaths or injuries occurred. However, the Oakland Police began harassing and arresting the young men for directing traffic without authority. These confrontations between the Panthers and the Oakland Police led the Panthers to demand changes in the way the almost all-white police force operated.

Oakland Historical Marker Commemorating the Organization of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Bobby Seale, a co-founder of the Black Panthers, was born in Dallas, Texas, but moved to Oakland with his family when he was a child. Seale was living in the home when he enrolled at nearby Merritt College, where he studied politics and engineering. It was there that Seale met Huey Newton, another student at the college. In October of 1966, the two men founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.&nbsp; The home, which Seale's parents purchased in 1960 for $13,000, was more than simply a meeting place for the Panthers. It was there that Seale and Newton signed the .organization's manifesto and wrote its Ten Point Platform. According to Seale, the Panthers often met around his parents' dining room table, and when they returned from their nighttime patrols of Oakland neighborhoods, the group would unload their weapons in their home.&nbsp; The former Seale residence was "flipped" and sold by real estate developers in 2012, who listed the house with a price of $400,000, a shocking amount for a home in what was once one of the more impoverished neighborhoods in Oakland.&nbsp;

During the 1960s, Bobby Seale lived with his parents and siblings at the home on 57th Street. Seale was the co-founder, along with Huey Newton, of the Black Panthers, and the organization often met at the residence.

Former Home of Bobby Seale 

The original Merritt College, located on what was then Grove Street, began as a facility to teach the children of University of California faculty in 1923. After closing during World War II, the school reopened as the Merritt School of Business in 1946. It was later renamed Merritt College.&nbsp; As white residents moved out of North Oakland following World War II, the Black enrollment at Merritt increased. There was a fourfold increase in the number of Black students at Merritt from 1964 to 1969, and many of the students were politically active on campus. In the mid-1960s, students at the college organized Soul Students Advisory Council (SSAC) and began to advocate for a Black studies program and Black faculty and administrators. In 1965, SSAC began to push Merritt's administration to hire a Black counselor specifically for Black students. One of the organization's members, Bobby Seale, threatened to shut the campus down if the hire was not made. Sid Walton was the college's first Black faculty member and served as an adviser for SSAC. It was in late 1966, just months after the formation of SSAC, that Bobby Seale met another Merritt student, Huey Newton. Inspired by their earlier work with SSAC and other Black revolutionary organizations, Newton and Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The move was partly in response to the killing, in October of that year, of Matthew Johnson, a sixteen-year-old, unarmed Black man by a San Francisco police officer. The rioting that followed Johnson's death convinced Newton that the Black community's anger could be harnessed to resist the police. Despite the objections and protests of numerous students, the college was moved from its Grove Street location to the &nbsp;hills of East Oakland in 1971. Though the move was planned several years beforehand, the relocation was seen by many Black and Chicano students as a response to student activism on the largely minority Grove Street location. The Grove Street campus remained open for a few more years, but was declared seismically unsound in 1975. After sitting empty for a number of years, the site was reconditioned and is now home to Children's Hospital and Research Center Oakland.&nbsp; The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Though it now occupies another location, Merritt College was originally located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, near the home of Black Panther co-founder, Bobby Seale. The college was a hotbed of political activity and was where Seale met Huey Newton. The pair founded the Black Panthers in 1966. The college also had the nation's first Black Studies Department, created in 1964.

Former Site of Merritt College 

The building that now houses the It's All Good Bakery was the original headquarters of the Black Panther Party, founded in 1966. At the time, the group's office consisted of just that--they initially had no furniture until Sid Walton, a counselor at Merritt College, gave them some chairs.&nbsp; The storefront office, on what was then named Grove Street, was roughly a block-and-a-half from Bobby Seale's house. They rented the space in January of 1967, shortly after the organization was formed in October of 1966. The Panthers held meetings in the office every Saturday to instruct new members on the Ten-Point Platform and the philosophy of the organization.&nbsp; The headquarters was also where the organization printed its newspaper, The Black Panther Party.&nbsp;The newspaper's circulation was 125,000 a week, and its peak, it was close to 300,000 per week. The paper was distributed throughout the United States.&nbsp; Kim Cloud, one of the owners of the bakery, participated in the free breakfast program as a child.

In  North Oakland, the It's All Good Bakery might appear to be an ordinary bake shop. But the building has a history not readily apparent from the outside. In the 1960s, the building was the original headquarters of the Black Panther Party.

It's All Good Bakery (first headquarters of the Black Panther Party)

Huey Newton made a name for himself in Oakland in 1966 when he and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panthers. From its inception, the organization was controversial; while many African-Americans in the impoverished Oakland neighborhoods where it was based admired the organization for its espousal of armed resistance, law enforcement and the media largely viewed the Panthers as nothing more than violent criminals.&nbsp; The truth, as it often is, was more complicated, as was Newton. Disparaged by many as a gangster, Newton eventually earned a Ph.D. in social philosophy at the University of California Santa Cruz. Viewed by his admirers as a leader of the oppressed and a man of the people, Newton lived for a time in a penthouse high above Oakland and drove a Mercedes-Benz. After living for a time in Cuba to escape prosecution for murder, Newton returned to the United States. In the last years of Newton's life, he struggled with cocaine addiction and various criminal charges. At the time of his death, Newton had recently been released from San Quentin. Shortly before dawn on August 22, 1989, Newton was shot several times in Oakland's Lower Bottoms neighborhood. Tyrone Robinson was convicted of his murder, which was reportedly the result of a drug dispute.&nbsp;

In August of 1989, the life of controversial Black Panther co-founder came to a violent end in an Oakland neighborhood, just two blocks from the original Panther headquarters. 

Huey Newton Murder Site 

Eugene and Ruth Lasartemay, Jessie and Dr. Marcella Ford had no idea that their inspiration to collect historical articles and oral histories would lead to such an amazing place such as the African American Museum and Library at Oakland. There collections were&nbsp;strictly&nbsp;on the artifacts and oral presentations that were&nbsp;solely&nbsp;based on Oakland, The Bay Area&nbsp;and California. In 1965 the collections that were maintained by the Lasartemay's, Jessie&nbsp;and Dr. Ford turned into the East Bay Negro Historical Society. After&nbsp;realizing&nbsp;their success in people wanting to come in and learn more on this issue they decided to get a bigger place and thats how the location and name African American Museum and Library at Oakland developed.&nbsp; with 160 collections and 80 years of African American in the East Bay Collected, The Lasartemay's, Jessie&nbsp;and Dr. Ford's&nbsp;once just stacks of information and history became an entire room and an entire building of collections. There are as many as 400 Videos that can be watched and learned through out the Museum and Library which allows room for education purposes and&nbsp;field trips. There is a huge selected of 12,000 books&nbsp;strictly&nbsp;on the collections of African American History in Northern California and the widespread that spread around the world. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcom X and many more, so much information has been maintained and collected to create this amazing place.&nbsp; As you can tell not all of this place is just a Library of collections but also a huge Museum is presented on the second floor of the building. This museum is unique in the fact that it presents host and original&nbsp;exhibitions&nbsp;that focus on Northern California. A lot of museums focus on many areas of the country but its great to see what has happened to many places that as a Californian you would have&nbsp;never imagined happened where you grew up.&nbsp;Although&nbsp;this&nbsp;building has always been a home to books since it was a popular library in the 1900s, it has kept its purpose as now a historical place in Northern California.&nbsp;

Many people would not believe how much African American History was created and developed in Northern California. Most people remember a lot of riots and movements that transpired down in the southern California region around Los Angeles. Because of this, a museum was created and build to educate the many people that did not know what had happened in their own backyards. This museum was created to educate the Bay Area on how much has happened there when it comes to the African American lifestyle and struggles in the centuries before. The African American Museum and Library at Oakland was a creation of four people who started collecting oral histories and artifacts and in 1946 and their aspiration became a dream many will never forget. 

bp 2022/04/15 - local

de Fremery House

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information