Black youths see themselves in art
In a changing Oakland, BART mural claims place in culture of future
Solomon Bland wondered whether he was ever going to see his vision on the walls of a BART station.
It had been three years since Bland and six other young Black men had an internship at BART where, in addition to getting professional development experience, they helped plan a mural for the Coliseum BART Station.
On Friday, the mural was unveiled in the tunnel that connects the parking lot to the station. It reads: “For the Culture. By the Culture.”
It might as well read “For Oakland, by Oakland,” because Marcos LaFarga, the muralist the young men selected to paint the mural, took his cues from them. He listened to their voices.
That’s not something Black people raised in Oakland are used to.
“It made me feel like I really had a say,” Bland, 20, told me. “It’s nice, because these days, the Oakland kids, especially Black youth, don’t really get that. People don’t let them have the mic.”
Some murals are shrines to local legends. Some are eulogies to life snatched by violence. Some use the space to fight displacement. Almost all reveal something about life in Oakland.
After the windows of many downtown businesses on Broadway were busted during the protests of systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the plywood used to cover the broken windows was turned into canvases to express pain, solidarity and hope.
A stretch of downtown Oakland became an outdoor art gallery, and a spot for people to gather. Murals can help communities heal.
A year ago, BART unveiled a mural of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station, a reminder that he was shot in the back by a police officer on New Year’s Day in 2009.
The Coliseum Station has its share of challenges. In April 2017, dozens of teens hurdled fare gates and raced to the secondstory platform where they took over a train, forcing passengers in at least one car to hand over their phones and other valuables. Six people were robbed on the train, with a seventh person accosted on the platform. The teens fled before police arrived.
In 2019, the Coliseum Station trailed only Balboa Station for snatchandrun thefts of laptops, cell phones and other items in the system. The general perception of the Coliseum Station is that it’s dangerous. Still, thousands of people piled into trains to get off at the Coliseum to attend concerts and
sporting events back when that was a thing we did. But many of the revelers likely didn’t stop to think about the surrounding neighborhoods that are devoid of jobs, investment and opportunity.
Before the coronavirus, people living in neighborhoods like Lockwood Gardens, Brookfield Village, Highland and Sobrante Park were already struggling to maintain a place in Oakland because of skyrocketing housing costs. Bland said his mother was pushed out of Sobrante Park, a neighborhood east of 105th Avenue, because she couldn’t afford the rent. They moved in with his grandmother near Lake Merritt until his mother saved enough to buy a house — in Stockton.
“She loves it out there,” said Bland, who now lives with his father in Antioch. “She’s commuting, but she’s comfortable. I’m so proud of my mom.”
After graduating from Antioch High School, Bland attended Merritt College in the Oakland hills and played basketball for the school before injuring his back. He transferred to play at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, where he’s majoring in business management. He hopes to return to Oakland one day.
“I want to raise my family in Oakland, because this is where I’m from,” he said as we stood in front of the mural. “But it’s changed over the years. It’s changed so much over the years, like, it don’t look the same.”
Bland was joined by Hezekiah Pemberton, Makale Bradley, Jordan Hill, Kasai Jackson, Ahmari Harris and Victor Zarate for the fiveweek paid internship. They were all in high school in 2017, and it was the first office experience for many of them. As part of the internship, Jennifer Easton, BART’s art program manager, took them on a tour of existing murals.
“One of their thoughts was, ‘How do we put our stamp on it that is positive — that we’re of this community?’ ” Easton said. “They were really integral in the definition of what the art would be. They really felt like this was something that they wanted to get right.”
LaFarga, who has a graffiti and Pop Art background, wanted the young men to see themselves represented. He said painting the mural was an honor — and a huge weight. The word “culture” is rendered two different ways. One is in bold, block letters. The other is in cursive. The words are separated by an oak tree. For me, it sparked a question: What’s the future of Oakland’s culture?
“It has so many meanings. It’s just heavy,” LaFarga, 42, said. “I really hope I did right by them.”
Bland said he wants the Black girls and boys from the surrounding neighborhoods to see themselves in the mural.
“It’s saying if we can make part of history like this, y’all can,” he said. “It’s all about opportunities and chances.”
“I want to raise my family in Oakland, because this is where I’m from. But it’s changed ... so much over the years.”
Solomon Bland