Piedmont’s first Black family sues city over century-old racial discrimination

PIEDMONT — Descendants of Piedmont’s first Black residents are suing the city for the forced expulsion of Sidney Dearing and his family in 1925 — an era of white mobs, a KKK-aligned police chief, attempted bombings and a corrupt legal system in the city, according to allegations in the new lawsuit.

The family’s lawyer says the suit is an effort to hold Piedmont accountable for its history of racism and the loss of the Dearings’ family home and generational wealth, serving as another chapter in the Bay Area’s history of segregation.

“They were met with violence, lynchings, multiple bombings, and the city, in terms of their role, stood by while this violence was being perpetuated,” said Leah Aden, who is representing the descendants of Sidney Dearing, one of whom lives in Oakland. “There was just a complete dereliction of obligation then that can be rectified today.”

Dearing moved from Texas to Oakland in 1907, where, by 1918, he became the wealthy proprietor of the Oakland music establishment Creole Cafe, a New Orleans Big Band-style jazz venue serving Southern cuisine. Dearing sought to buy a home in Piedmont for his wife, Irene, and two young children, but because of racial restrictions known as “redlining” in the 1920s, Dearing had his mother-in-law use his money to purchase a two-story Prairie-style single-family home for $10,000 — just shy of $200,000 in 2026 dollars — in 1924, according to Aden.

Dearing’s mother-in-law, who was white, then transferred the deed to Dearing, making him the first Black homeowner in the tony enclave that is surrounded by Oakland.

After learning of his real estate maneuver, white residents protested the sale at Piedmont City Council meetings in the spring of 1924, according to a March 14, 1924, Piedmont Weekly News article. The City Council urged Piedmont citizens to write letters to Dearing pressuring him to sell or rent the house at 67 Wildwood Ave. to a white family. But Dearing refused to acquiesce despite the public pressure, according to the Piedmont Historical Society.

“I will sell my house when it pleases me, and at the price that suits me,” Dearing said at a meeting, according to news archives.

On May 6, 1924, a mob of 500 white residents gathered outside of his home, demanding he sell it. Piedmont Police Chief Burton Becker — a high-ranking Ku Klux Klan member, according to the Piedmont Historical Society — refused to interfere. Instead, Alameda County Sheriff Frank Barnet ordered two deputies to protect the family.

“The sheriff did protect me when the mob gathered in front of my home recently, but since then I have had no protection,” Dearing told the City Council after the incident. “I will supply my own protection.”

Piedmont City Attorney Girard Richardson offered Dearing $8,000 for his home — 20% less than the value Dearing had bought it for several months prior. If the offer was not accepted immediately, the city would begin condemnation proceedings to acquire the property and clear it for a street. Dearing rejected the offer, and the City Council passed a resolution to condemn his Wildwood Avenue home, using eminent domain.

“The city can not just say it needs the property and then have a jury fix the price,” Dearing’s attorney, John D. Drake, told the Oakland Post Enquirer in 1924. “The City Council has no definite idea of how it would use the property should it be acquired. We intend to fight any court action.”

More than 35 years later, Alameda County and Hayward officials used similar tactics to justify the destruction of Russell City. The vibrant Black community south of Hayward was labeled “urban blight” by county officials in order to bulldoze thousands of homes to make space for an industrial park. Last year, Alameda County and Hayward created a “redress fund” to directly pay residents who were displaced in the late 50s and 60s. And a coalition of East Bay residents, businesses and nonprofits calling themselves 7th Street Thrives is working to rejuvenate West Oakland’s historic Black business corridor.

“It’s similar because in both cases they used eminent domain to remove minority families from their properties,” said Gloria Moore, a former Russell City resident and a member of the steering committee for the redress fund.

Dearing’s refusal to be extorted out of his home was nearly met with destructive violence. During the summer of 1924, Dearing faced three bomb threats, including on June 5, 1924, when “Dearing found a bomb on his lawn with its fuse sputtering,” which he snuffed out with his feet, according to an Oakland Tribune article at the time. Though a Piedmont police detective said he believed the reported bombing attempts were true, he had no interest in investigating them, according to the lawsuit.

Amid mounting pressure from both vigilante violence and municipal manipulation, Dearing settled the condemnation lawsuit and moved his family to 7th Street in West Oakland. The city of Piedmont purchased the home from Dearing for $10,500 in Jan. 29, 1925, according to the Oakland Tribune. Today, the four-bedroom home not far from Grand Avenue and the Rose Garden is listed on real estate sites as being worth $2.6 million.

“Had they not used the fraudulent condemnation action, which is what we’re alleging, that property could have reasonably stayed in the family, and that would have created generational wealth,” Aden said.

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the Piedmont City Council resolved to examine the history of the Dearings and voted to create the “Dearing Portal,” a memorial for its first Black family at the park facing 67 Wildwood Ave. The city also issued an apology that included contacting descendants of the Dearings to acknowledge the damage done to their family.

“What Sidney and Irene Dearing experienced 100 years ago was abhorrent, and is a shameful chapter in the community’s history. It does not reflect the values of the community today,” the city of Piedmont said in a statement. “The memorial is an important part of the community’s commitment to honest reckoning with the past as we work together to build a more welcoming, inclusive future.”

But the impact of the Dearings’ coerced removal from Piedmont has rippled out across the 1.7-square-mile community that continues to be overwhelmingly white even after the sunsetting of racial covenants and redlining. Nearly 70% of Piedmont residents are white, while less than 1% of Piedmont residents are Black, according to 2024 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We’re not aware, based upon the evidence, that another Black family owned a home (in Piedmont) until at least the 1950s or 1960s,” Aden, the attorney for the Dearing family, said. “Today, we allege that less than 2% of the population is Black. It remains a super‑majority white, very affluent enclave, which is not by accident.”