100 years after 1st Black family in Piedmont, California was driven out, memorial moves forward
A memorial sculpture park honoring the first Black family to own a home in the city of Piedmont is once again gaining momentum, with Oakland artist and landscape architect Walter Hood ready to bring his design to life.
"We are interested in people, how people remember and how that becomes part of their future," said Hood.
This past week, the city of Piedmont announced a new a timeline and confirmed the target date for the project.
"We are intending in the next 12 months to complete the design for the project and proceed with its installation," said Rosanna Bayon-Moore, City Administrator of Piedmont, "At this time, the city is at the 50-percent concept stage."
The genesis of the project reaches back five years ago in 2020 during COVID, when residents who had a lot of time on their hands, uncovered the history of a dark time in their beloved city, even setting up a website documenting the city's dark past.
In January of 1924, Sidney Dearing and his wife Irene became the first Black family to become homeowners in Piedmont, with help of Irene's mother who purchased the home on Wildwood and Fairview Avenues, during a time when many communities were redlining people of color to prevent them from living in certain neighborhoods.
Newspaper articles show the city council and residents wanted the Dearing family out, and when they refused, the town became angry.
The Dearing home became a target for violence, including an unexploded bomb made of dynamite that was found in the garden. In May of 1924, a mob of 500 people surrounded the home.
Eventually, the Dearing family, for their own safety, sold the home back to the city of Piedmont.
Gary Theut has lived in the Dearing House with his family for almost 20 years, and did not know about the home's history when he first bought it, but said he looks forward to the memorial that will be built in a triangle-shaped redwood grove that sits in front of the house.
"I think, although the history is ugly, I think it is really important that we honor those people who went through it," said Theut. "And I'm glad we know about it now, and that the community is aware."
The Piedmont City Council first gave the green light to the memorial in 2022, looking to right a wrong that happened in their town.
"We are committed to being a different community today, and being a different community means facing difficult topics," said Bayon-Moore. "It means confronting difficult chapters in our history. It means having a difficult conversation to be able to move forward.
The city chose Hood to lead the conversation. His work can be viewed around the world, around the country and in the Bay Area, including the gardens at the De Young Museum, the Bow along the Embarcadero, and Panorama Park on Yerba Buena Island.
Hood said he wanted to work on the Dearing family project because it was personal.
"I'm a Black man, it is just that simple," said Hood. "I think if we don't tell our stories, someone else will."
In his original design, Dearing's story will be told through two portals that visitors sit inside, and through a mirror can look out two windows.
"These are metaphorical for the couple who never had a chance to dwell here in Piedmont," said Hood. "And the last piece is up high on a flagpole is an oversized mailbox that has the Dearing name on the side, the flag is up, meaning that they have mail."
Recently, Hood finished the garden at the International African American Museum in South Carolina. Although the two projects are different in scale, he believes all the stories are connected.
"Charleston prides itself on its history as the oldest city in the country, and they lost the site where 45% of the African slave diaspora landed there and was sold," said Hood. "And so, if a place like that steeped in history can forget something that consequential to the making of America, little Piedmont, this little story, it is easy to be swept under."
