Ryan Coogler was born on May 23, 1986. He is a renowned filmmaker, having made a name for himself through screenwriting, directing, and/or producing nine films...
Darius Milhaud is a composer who was born to a Jewish family in Aix-en-Provence on September 4, 1892. Originally a violinist, Milhaud later focused his musical...
Hung Liu was born on February 17, 1948 in Changchun, China. Hung Liu is a Chinese painter who focuses on paintings based on historical Chinese photographs of p...
The Rebel Kings are a group of drag kings established in 2010 in Oakland, California. They are women and gender-expansive folks who lip sync dressed as men, th...
Favianna Rodriguez was born on September 26, 1978. Favianna Rodriguez is a self-identified queer Latina with Afro-Peruvian roots who currently resides in East ...
Hanifah Walidah was born on October 16 in New York, New York. Hanifah Walidah is an “artist, friend, woman, black, lesbian, shit-talker. In that order.” She cu...
Moshe Kasher is a comedian who was born on July 6, 1979. Soon after his birth in Queens to Jewish and deaf parents, Moshe Kasher’s mother whisked him and his o...
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, also known as Tom Hanks, is an actor, writer, director, and producer born on July 9, 1956 in Concord, California. The Hanks family line i...
Chelsea Peretti was born on February 20, 1978. Chelsea Peretti is a successful actress, writer, and stand-up comedian; she is best known for her role as Gina L...
Virgie Tovar was born in 1982. Virgie Tovar is an activist and author based in San Francisco, California. She runs a blog that promotes body positivity, showca...
Imogen Cunningham was born on April 12, 1883 in Portland, Oregon and died on June 24, 1976 in San Francisco, California. A photographer at the center of the 19...
Jess Mowry was born on March 27, 1960 near Starkville, Mississippi. Mowry is an author who writes young adult and children’s fiction based on the experiences o...
Jerold Dwight Ellis III, a.k.a. Yukmouth, was born on October 18, 1974 in Oakland, CA. Yukmouth is an American Grammy-nominated rapper, documentarian, and foun...
Souls of Mischief is a hip-hop group from Oakland, California that is also part of the hip-hop collective Hieroglyphics. Souls of Mischief’s most famous track,...
Juliana “Jewels” Smith is a writer, an educator, and the creator of (H)afrocentric, a comic book series that follows the lives of five undergrads of color who ...
Refa One, a.k.a. Refa Senay, was born in Oakland on July 16, 1972. Refa One is an aerosol artist (using spray paint), muralist, illustrator, activist, and educ...
Duane Deterville was born on March 14, 1960. Duane is an artist, writer, and visual culture scholar primarily interested in African and African diasporic cultu...
Avy Jetter was born on December 11, 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been a professional zine artist since 2012. A zine is an independently or self-publ...
Turf dancing is a dance form that originated in Oakland, which combines gliding, popping, and waving mixed in with a touch of ballet and break dancing.
Noh ...
Joshua Mays was born in 1976 in Denver, Colorado. He is a muralist and illustrator. His art features black subjects in fantastical settings and is considered b...
Dr. Zakariya Diouf was born on February 12 in Senegal, a country in West Africa. Dr. Diouf has taught at San Jose State University, Sonoma State University, th...
Robert Moses was born in 1963. Robert practices and teaches dance and choreography through RMK Dance Company as well as at Mills as a professor. He incorporate...
Maria Kaylib Chavez, a.k.a. MK Chavez, was born on June 14, 1964 in San Francisco. MK Chavez is a poet and writer. She said, “Animals are always going to be pr...
Keak da Sneak, a.k.a. Charles Kente Williams, was born on October 21, 1977 in Brewton, Alabama but moved to Oakland, CA when he was a few months old. Williams ...
Malik Seneferu was born on April 7, 1971 in San Francisco. A Bay Area native and African-American artist, Malik Seneferu presents a wide variety of representat...
Andrew Demcak was born on September 23, 1968 in Silver Spring, Maryland. Andrew Demcak is a critically acclaimed novelist and poet. He writes YA novels for LGB...
Walter Hood primarily focuses on architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. He is currently a Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmen...
Samuel Getachew is the 2019 Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland, CA and primarily has been recognized for his poetry (slam poetry and spoken word). His poetry has b...
Daniel Clowes is a cartoonist, illustrator, graphic novelist, and screenwriter. Recently in interviews Clowes has said that he has lived in Oakland for nearly ...
Goapele was born on July 11, 1977 in Oakland, California. Hailed as an original and mesmerizing voice in the new soul genre, singer Goapele has gained national...
Maw Shein Win is an artist of many types, including a poet, musician, video maker, interpretive dancer, performance artist, and a combination of those. She has...
Yiyun Li was born on November 4, 1972 in Beijing, China. She is the author of six books, including three novels and two short story collections, A Thousand Yea...
Tomas Moniz was born on June 5, 1969 in El Paso, TX. He is an author, activist, and zinester who is known for his work on the parenting zine Rad Dad and activi...
Jeremy Mayer was born in 1972 in Northern Minnesota. He is an American sculptor who uses typewriter parts, some dating back more than 80 years, making them int...
Raymond “Boots” Riley was born on April 1, 1971 and is a founding member and lead vocalist for the Coup, a radical, edgy, Oakland-based underground hip-hop gro...
Oree Originol was born on September 11, 1984 in Glendale, CA. Oree was inspired by gang culture in his neighborhood by writing also known as graffiti. He began...
Mariko Tamaki was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1975. She is an LGBTQ activist, performance artist, and writer best known for her graphic novels Skim and This On...
Karen Seneferu was born on August 6, 1960 in Oakland, California. As a child in Oakland, she took part in the Black Panther’s free breakfast program. Having be...
Liliana Herrera was born on June 3, 1993 in Sonora, Mexico. She is a visual artist, face and body painter, art teacher, and model. Her more recent ventures inc...
Natalia Anciso was born on March 25, 1985 in Weslaco, Texas. Natalia is a contemporary visual artist whose art draws from her experience as a child growing up ...
Chris Granillo was born in the Coachella Valley in 1982, growing up near Palm Springs, CA. He is a muralist, painter, printmaker, street artist, and sculptor. ...
Pam Warren (a.k.a. Pam the Funkstress or Purple Pam) was born on November 11, 1966 in Shreveport, Louisiana and died on December 22, 2017. Warren was a DJ, mos...
TheArthur Wright is a pointillist bleach artist who expresses the culture of blackness in his paintings. Wright believes that expression of truths or beliefs a...
Morrie Turner was an American cartoonist famous for creating Wee Pals, a popular nationally syndicated comic strip that featured an integrated cast of ethnical...
Yuri Kochiyama was born on May 19, 1921 and died on June 1, 2014. She was born in San Pedro, CA, while she spent many of her later years in Oakland, CA as well...
Roman Martinez, alternatively spelled Ramon Martinez, was born on December 3, 1904 and died on June 8, 1950. He was born in Winslow, AZ but moved to Oakland, C...
“It’s adversity, being in the heat of the struggle, that moves us forward. Fighting gives me back my energy.” ~ Nellie Wong
Nellie Wong’s focus is poetry, s...
Galen Rowell was an American photographer and photojournalist whose career was active in the ‘70s but whose life was cut short due to a fatal plane crash. He i...
William Wong is an author and journalist with a focus on justice for the Asian-American community, immigration, and the history of Oakland Chinatown. Observati...
Emory Douglas was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1943 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He served as the minister of culture for the Black Panther ...
Pauline Oliveros was born on May 30, 1932 in Houston, Texas and died on November 24, 2016 in Kingston, New York. Pauline Oliveros’s life as a composer, perform...
Pete Escovedo was born on July 13, 1935 in Pittsburg, California. Escovedo is a Latin jazz percussionist and a fine-art painter from the Bay Area who has been ...
Shu Yi Liu was born in China on January 1, 1941. Mr. Liu’s art is Chinese drawing and painting where he bridges Eastern and Western art traditions. He uses wat...
Wendy was born on January 17, 1943 at Manzanar. Wendy Yoshimura's art is watercolor paintings and fine-art prints. She “paint the subtle moments when clear mor...
Pharoah (Ferrell) Sanders was born on October 13, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Sanders is a world-renowned jazz saxophonist with a sound that ranges fro...
Ishmael Reed was born on February 22, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Reed is a poet, musician, novelist, playwright, and more. Reed is an accomplished artist ...
Steven Arnold was born on May 18, 1943 in Oakland, CA. He was a surrealist who worked in various mediums: film, photography, painting, illustration, theater, a...
Casper Banjo was considered disabled, black, and gifted. Born in Memphis, TN, Banjo often faced racism growing up in the forties and fifties, which was one of ...
Esther’s Orbit Room was a popular jazz club and hub during the cultural scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The club transitioned from a hotspot destination and talent...
Tower of Power is a soul and funk band that was formed in Oakland, CA in July 1968. Tower of Power currently has 10 members and has had at least 60 musicians t...
Jeremy Webster “Fred” Frith was born on February 17, 1949 in the small town of Heathfield in East Sussex, England. Frith describes himself as a songwriter, com...
Isadora Duncan, born on May 26, 1877 in San Francisco, California, was a founder of modern dance. Her style emphasizes natural movement and flow. Her main sour...
Delilah Leontium Beasley, born on September 9, 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a scholar, pioneer, and powerhouse. She was a devout Roman Catholic with a strong ...
Julia Morgan, born on January 20, 1872 in San Francisco, is one of the most well-known architects. Morgan worked for over 40 years in architecture and designed...
Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi (野口米次郎) was a journalist as well as a writer who wrote both poetry and prose, including novels and books. He could write in both Englis...
John Griffith Chaney, whose name was later changed to Jack London, was born on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, CA. He was an American novelist, activist, an...
Ina Donna Coolbrith was born on March 10, 1841 in Nauvoo, Illinois. Ina was a writer, poet, teacher, and librarian in the SF Bay Area in the 19th and early 20t...
Walter J. Mathews was born on May 2, 1850 in Markesan, Wisconsin and died on November 20, 1947 in Oakland, California. His brother Arthur was a well-known pain...
Netta Eames was born Ninetta Wiley in Delhi, Wisconsin fourteen miles outside of Oshkosh on September 26, 1852, and she passed away on March 6, 1944 at the age...
Gertrude Stein was born on February 3, 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She was a writer, poet, art collector, and advocate for the arts. She is known for her ...
Joaquin Miller had many types of careers throughout his life; he was a lawyer, judge, and poet. He was born on September 8, 1837 as Cincinnatus Hiner Miller ne...
Harold Padeo, a.k.a. Harold Padio, Harold Patio, and Albert Paddio, was a pioneering jazz valve trombonist during the Ragtime era. Jelly Roll Morton was record...
