The city of Hayward, Calif., apologized for its role in destroying a Black and Latino community 60 years ago. But some locals say the apology has done more harm than good.
HAYWARD, Calif. — Aisha Knowles grew up hearing stories from family members about life in Russell City, a predominantly Black and Latino community. Family members who lived there reminisced about the neighborhood of about 1,400 people, conjuring nostalgic feelings for a safe haven.
Renewed efforts to rectify the past are being pursued on federal, state and local levels across the country. The latest example was the return of Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family in 2021, after the land was illegally seized 100 years earlier by the city of Manhattan Beach under pressure from the Ku Klux Klan.
Johnson says both sides of her family owned property and lived in Russell City. The makeshift neighborhood attracted residents of color who were otherwise restricted from living in other neighborhoods in the Bay Area because of racial covenants and redlining — including a nearby whites-only development, San Lorenzo, built in 1944. Racial covenants were deemed unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, but were not outlawed until the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968.
“We had to continue to rebuild every time,” Marian Johnson said. “We [would] be further along if you hadn’t done what was done to our family, to our community.”The resolution apologizes directly to “Black, Indigenous, Californio, Mexicano, Latino, Latinx and other community members of color” but, Hayward resident TJ Ferriera said, “There was no mention of white people, or Asians.”
Oral histories of the community have been passed on through families and annual reunion picnics, hosted for the past four decades by former residents and their families, many of whom now live in various parts of Alameda County. “They should have hired us,” Whitmore said, as she sifted through piles of meticulously organized and highlighted printouts of documents. It’s the result of a year and a half of research by Hayward Concerned Citizens, which dove deep into library, newspaper and government agency archives. The group said its research shows the dismantling of Russell City to create an industrial area was a typical act of civic progress.
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