Singled Out.
Many East Bay residents are justifiably proud of the athletes who grew up here. Some fans can rattle off the Hall of Famers in the major sports, including Bill Russell, Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell, Joe Morgan, Ricky Henderson, Gary Payton and Jason Kidd.
In almost every case, the families of these star athletes moved to the East Bay flats from southern states during or shortly after the Second World War, when defense jobs in Oakland and Richmond were plentiful. Segregation often kept Black families in those neighborhoods, even after California passed its fair housing law in 1963.
Not all of the East Bay’s notable athletes were Black — Billy Martin, for example, who was white, attended Berkeley High School before signing with the fabled New York Yankees — but the influx of African-American families to Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito and Richmond supercharged the local sports scene even as it transformed its politics.