Golden Gate Library
Local Book Collection
In 2018, Commons Archive published The Golden Gate Library Local Collection, a set of eight titles that forms the first neighborhood-based reference collection in the Oakland Public Library. This limited-edition artist book series contains photos, handwritten neighbor stories, journals, interview transcripts and scrapbooks - public knowledge that had been relegated to neighbors' attics and basements.
The book titles below can be read in-person at these locations:
The Oakland History Center, Oakland Main Library
125 14th Street, Downtown Oakland
The Golden Gate Branch Library
5606 San Pablo Avenue, North Oakland
The African-American Museum & Library at Oakland
659 14th Street, Downtown Oakland
Follow this link to find all of the books in Oakland Public Library’s online catalog.
Follow this link to read each title online on California Revealed’s online archive.
“What happens when the people with recollections of historical events are no longer with us?
How do we preserve the past when the eyewitnesses are gone?”
— Susan D. Anderson, Commons Archive Advisor, History Curator & Program Manager, California African American Museum
Excerpt from “Knowledge Increaseth Strength”: Public Memory, Social Forgetting and the East Bay Negro Historical Society
A Renovator’s History
Seth Melchert (1988)
A resident’s personal account of rebuilding his house and connecting with neighbors in the 1980s.
Blacks in Oakland:
1852–1987
Donald Hausler (1987)
A well-researched compendium about the parallel African American communities in Oakland
Community Profile: Golden Gate Neighborhood
Professor Edward Blakely & Students (1993)
UC Berkeley’s urban planning students' research into the Golden Gate community
Golden Gate Conversations
Sue Mark (2015)
Oral histories of longtime and new neighbors
Golden Gate Neighborhood Conditions
Professors Neema Kudva, David Driskell & Students (2001)
UC Berkeley’s urban planning students’ research into the Golden Gate community
Golden Gate Walking Tour
Donald Hausler (1999)
Photos and research of the neighborhood’s business district
I Must Not Forget
Eugene Lasartemay (1981)
The handwritten life story of one of the East Bay Negro Historical Society's founders
On Becoming A Historic Resident
Brock Winstead (2015)
A relative new neighbor’s social and archaeological excavation of his home