From Resistance to Recognition: Piedmont’s Black History Remembered

It was a warm, sunny morning last Wednesday when our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group assembled at the Exedra for our weekly walk. There was a large turnout of 54 walkers and two K-9 best friends on hand. February is recognized as Black History Month. Last Wednesday was this year’s last February Wednesday and it was an opportunity to consider Piedmont’s Black history.

Our first destination was the Wildwood Avenue former home of the Sidney Dearing family, the first Black family to own a Piedmont house. We could also later learn about Tom Williamson, who was the first African American student in Piedmont.

We went down Magnolia Avenue to 67 Wildwood Avenue and stopped in front of the house where a sad piece of Piedmont’s history was shared. Newspaper articles of the time from Meghan Bennett’s sidneydearing.com webpage said Dearing was a successful café owner “whose blood is Indian and white, but sufficient of the black to mark him negro.” Their house was purchased for $10,000 in January 1924 by Dearing’s mother-in-law, who was White. She transferred it to Dearing and his biracial wife. When this was learned, a Piedmont citizens committee offered to buy the home from Dearing for $3,000 more than was paid for it, and he and his family would have to leave the city. Dearing refused. The City said if he didn’t accept their offer, it would start condemnation and eminent domain proceedings so that a supposed extension of Fairview Avenue could be built through to Wildwood Avenue.

During this contentious period, a brick was thrown through the window of Darling’s home and a bomb large enough to damage several blocks was found near the home. The Alameda County sheriff provided protection for the home, but the Piedmont chief of police, who as a member of the KKK, did not. In May of that year, a crowd of more than 500 people gathered in front of the home and refused to disperse until Dearing agreed to sell the house and leave Piedmont. Dearing finally did agree. He said he would accept $25,000, $15,000 of which was for “the surrender of his constitutional rights.” Dearing sold the house in February 1925 and he and his family moved to Oakland.

Better news today is that the Piedmont City Council is developing a Sidney and Irene Dearing Memorial Project in Triangle Park at Magnolia and Wildwood Avenues, across the street from where they lived. This project began in May 2022 when the City Council directed the Park Commission to develop recommendations for a memorial. A subcommittee talked with descendants of the Dearings and others to develop a set of guiding project principles. The City has engaged Oakland-based landscape architect Walter Hood of Hood Design Studio to develop memorial designs, and hopefully construction will be done this year.

We took a group photo in front of the Dearings’ home and then went up Wildwood Avenue to Palm Drive, Wallace Avenue, Wildwood Avenue again, and past the Wildwood School playground where staff member Mike Carter was getting ready for the noon rush. We stopped nearby and looked down at Witter Field, and a better piece of Piedmont’s Black history was shared, that of Tom Williamson.

Nancy Olsen was a 1964 classmate and friend of Tom, and she shared her memories of him. Tom excelled both academically and athletically at Piedmont High, was student body president, and earned letters in football, basketball and track and field. He was an All-East defensive back on the Harvard football team, graduated magna cum laude, and was a Rhodes Scholar with Bill Clinton. He earned his law degree from UC Berkeley in 1974, and had a distinguished legal career marked by public service. Sadly, Tom died in 2017 at the age of 70 from pancreatic cancer. Meghan Bennett’s History of Piedmont website has an excellent page on Tom, https://www.historyofpiedmont.com/tom.

It was then time to go back to the Exedra. We found a steep extension of Requa Road on Wildwood, just past the steps down to Witter Field.

The road provides access to four lovely, hidden Requa homes. We had passed the road many times but never really noticed or walked it. We climbed up it to the rest of Requa, and then up to Hazel Lane, and a path on Hazel to Guilford Road and Piedmont Park.

The Requa extension might be a little like Black History in Piedmont. Many people don’t know about it. Some parts are hard, some parts are beautiful but exploring it can help us get to where we need to be.

P.S. In addition to the attached group photo are three other images. Two are of Tom Williamson and one is of Sidney Dearing and his wife.