For the last day of Black History Month, KCBS Radio toured a unique landmark located in the center of downtown Oakland, the African American Museum and Library, a space that provides a historical look into how Oakland and the greater Bay Area were formed by Black culture.
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"It's an interactive exhibition. We are celebrating our 20th Anniversary of being here as the African American Museum and Library," Veda Silva, the Museum Project Coordinator, told KCBS Radio. "We have over 160 collections from individuals from the Bay Area. Our collection is extensive but is localized. You can spend the entire day here, but never see the same thing twice."
The library, which was first started in a garage by Eugene and Ruth Lasartemay and Jesse and Dr. Marcella Ford, started as a small archival project to collect artifacts that documented Black life in the Bay Area.
The collection steadily grew and moved to a larger building on Grove Street, currently Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The founders began the collection in 1946, but by 1976 the archive became so extensive that the Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Public Library offered the records a temporary home. The Golden Gate Branch became the first Oakland library with a section dedicated solely to Black history.
As the archive evolved, so did the library's location. In February of 2002, AAMLO was relocated to its current space on 14th Street, which is a historic 1902 Andrew Carnegie building, and the library's permanent home.
Silva, who curates exhibits that feature interviews with Black leaders from Oakland, noted that one of her favorite aspects of the job is speaking with prominent figures from the community.
"The interviews are especially interesting for me," Silva said. "They keep me close to the community because I engage with them better. Some of those people come and visit us, and we get to talk about the interviews that we had."
The African American Museum and Library is open to community members throughout the week, but Silva recommends scheduling a tour to explore the rich archive of Black history. To review the museum's events and film screenings of archival footage, take a peek at the museum's website.
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