What was built
- Established or development period
- 1850s; Black and Latino settlement grew from the 1940s
- Peak period
- 1940s–1950s
- Who built the community
- Black families excluded from Hayward and other incorporated cities, alongside Mexican American and immigrant families, who bought lots and built their own homes.
- Black population
- Roughly 1,400 residents, largely Black and Latino.
- Businesses
- Small shops, bars, churches and a well-known blues circuit.
- Financial institutions
- Not yet documented
- Churches
- Several congregations serving the community.
- Schools
- Not yet documented
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- Not yet documented
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- A blues scene that drew Ray Charles and Big Mama Thornton.
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- Residents owned their lots and built homes themselves, but the county denied the community sewers, water service and paved streets.
- Economic significance
- A self-built, self-owned community for families excluded from surrounding cities by covenant and lending discrimination.
What happened
- What happened?
- In the early 1960s, Alameda County declared the community blighted, after decades of denying it basic services, and used eminent domain to clear it for an industrial park. Homes were demolished or burned in fire-department exercises and residents were forced out by 1966.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- County blight designation and industrial redevelopment plans.
- Underlying historical context
- Decades of deliberate service denial that manufactured the blight finding later used to justify condemnation.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Eminent Domain · Urban Renewal · Government Acquisition
- Date or period of destruction
- 1963–1966
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- Not yet documented
- Estimated deaths
- Not yet documented
- People displaced
- Roughly 1,400 residents.
- Homes destroyed
- Hundreds of self-built homes demolished or burned.
- Businesses destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Acres or property lost
- Owners were paid condemnation values reduced by the county's own refusal to provide infrastructure.
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- The Russell City Energy Center and an industrial park.
- Was compensation paid?
- Below-market condemnation payments at the time. In 2021 Alameda County formally apologized, and in 2023 the county approved a reparations program for former residents and descendants.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- No
- What was rebuilt?
- Not yet documented
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- An industrial park and power plant, with a historical marker and a county reparations program.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- The Russell City Reparative Justice Project, the county's 2021 apology and its 2023 reparations approval.
- Historical significance
- One of the very few American communities to receive a formal local-government apology and an approved reparations program for its destruction.
Sources
- Source lookupFind
Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Russell City resolution of apology (2021) and Reparative Justice Project records
- Source lookupFind
Hayward Area Historical Society
- Primary recordFind
California State Archives
- Source lookupFind
Alameda County Redevelopment Agency records
"Find" opens a focused search for legacy references that do not have a stable link; "Open" goes directly to the source.
Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.