NEARLY A CENTURY after Piedmont’s first Black resident was driven from his home through threats, violence, and what attorneys now call a fraudulent use of eminent domain, descendants of the family have filed a lawsuit against the city seeking a remedy for the loss of their property and generational wealth.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of the descendants of Sidney and Irene Dearing by the Legal Defense Fund, the nation’s first civil rights law firm. The firm was founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall, who would go on to become the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sidney Dearing was a descendent of native Seminoles, a tribe that was dispersed and migrated across the Gulf of Mexico after the frontier wars. His life began in Texas, but he was ambitious and moved to California. He opened a successful jazz club, the Creole Cafe, on Oakland’s Seventh Street, and took a bride named Irene. They had two children, a girl and a boy.
In 1924, he decided to buy a home for $10,000 at 67 Wildwood Ave. in a Piedmont neighborhood full of beautiful architecture and floral gardens, with open views of the Bay at sunset.
At 8 p.m. on May 6, 1924, an angry crowd of 500 white people appeared at their doorstep. They had come to demonstrate that the whole neighborhood wanted the Dearings to relinquish their property and vacate the city. In reports of the event, there was no mention of the presence of the city’s police chief, Burton Becker, who was an open member of the Ku Klux Klan.
According to the lawsuit, the Dearings faced a sustained campaign of intimidation, including threats of lynching, cross burnings, brick-throwing, and attempted bombings. Sidney sent his family away for safety and brought in security.
The attorneys argue that the city falsely claimed it needed the Dearings’ property for public use, and they have discovered a document as evidence. On June 19, 1924, the city filed an action in Alameda County Superior Court against Dearing seeking to condemn the property for the purported purpose of building a road between Wildwood Avenue and Fairview Avenue, the suit said.
“The city never intended to build the road,” said Leah Aden, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “We know based upon the factual record that they put the home up for sale and sold it to a white person a mere few months after the condemnation action was settled, which to us is indication that they were not intending to build or complete a road to the home, but that the city lied to the Dearings because they did not want a Black family to live in the city of Piedmont.”
The Dearing family dispersed after living in their home for less than a year. Sidney later died in 1953 alone and in poverty and is buried in an unmarked grave in Martinez.
The city never intended to build the road… the city lied to the Dearings because they did not want a Black family to live in the city of Piedmont.
Leah Aden, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund
Now, the family is asking for a remedy to the loss of generational wealth, the educational access and all the other resources that come along with having a home in Piedmont. The suit seeks damages related to the long-term value of the lost property, an official apology, and other remedies.
Attorneys for the family argue that statutes of limitation should be relaxed due to the extraordinary circumstances, including the city’s alleged concealment of records and the fact that key court documents were only recently uncovered regarding the condemnation.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau numbers, the Black population in Piedmont is 0.8% of the total population, compared to 20% in Oakland.
The filing follows growing national attention to historic racial takings, including the return of Bruce’s Beach in Los Angeles County to descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. Similar reparative actions have occurred in Palm Springs and Santa Monica. Aden said the case reflects a broader pattern of racially motivated land theft across the United States.
“These forcible expulsions must be acknowledged and repaired, and Piedmont has the authority and resources to do so,” Aden said.
The lawsuit also builds on research conducted by Piedmont native and librarian Meghan Bennett, who uncovered the Dearing family’s story during archival research and published her findings on the website sidneydearing.com in 2020.
Bennett said in a 2023 interview that former Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers used her website to train his staff on the history of the Dearings because he didn’t know there was a KKK police chief in Piedmont. The City Council adopted a resolution to unequivocally reject racism in all its forms.
“We must listen to those who have endured centuries of discrimination and exclusion as they share the truth of their lived experiences; and we must seek solutions to remedy racial harm,” the 2020 city resolution said.
The city is engaged in an ongoing effort to commission a public memorial honoring Sidney and Irene Dearing across from the home.
“We are not disputing that the memorial is a good recognition of what happened in the past, but it certainly is not a remedy for injustice,” said Arnold Brown with Seyfarth Shaw, a law firm that is partnering with the Legal Defense Fund on the suit.
Under state law, the city of Piedmont has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit or request additional time.