Rapid Transit and Community Power: West Oakland Residents Confront BART

Regional transportation planning shaped minority activism in the mid-1960s. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system encouraged West Oakland activists to create a strong local identity. BART supporters valued regional mobility and blamed ghetto poverty on the inaccessibility of suburban jobs. Minority activists blamed BART for harming the ghetto poor by encouraging job migration to the suburbs, and for displacing residents. As compensation, they demanded that BART hire minority workers and increase relocation payments. While West Oakland activists largely failed to influence BART, the newly unified community did gain local control of schools and urban poverty programs.