ED HOWARD – WEST OAKLAND STORIES (PART 6A)
ED HOWARD’S LIFE STORY
WHY DID OAKLAND NOT BURN BACK IN THE 1960’S SINCE THE MEDIA PLAYED US UP TO BE THE MOST MILITANT CITY IN AMERICA?
My Oakland Kaiser Engineers stories will take a book to explain, but I will attempt to summarize it the best way I can here.
I literally convinced Kaiser Engineers and Kaiser Industries to open up its hiring practice for white collar jobs to Black people in great numbers and that ended the old way of only having a token Negro in the office.
Kaiser was one of the most powerful businesses in Oakland at that time, so when the other Oakland companies saw Kaiser open up its business to Black people, they did the same.
Three years at Lockheed I grew tired of commuting to Sunnyvale, California so I got an interview with Kaiser Engineers and was hired. I resigned from Lockheed.
After being hired by Kaiser Engineers, I asked if I could go back to my high school (McClymonds) and talk to the students because I was an example for them to see what can be achieved coming from West Oakland. The first class I visited was Mr. Ben Tapscott’s Mechanical Drawing class, he turned out to be the first Black coach in the Oakland Unified School system. I believe Mr. Tapscott was just beginning his teaching career in Oakland.
Kaiser Management, to my surprise, really praised me after I visited a few schools; they began to question me about the Black community. The most consistent question was “What do Black people want?”, and my answer was always “jobs and money”.
I was invited to come to a meeting in Walnut Creek at an exclusive country club to meet the top executives of Kaiser Industries – they just looked at me, no conversation. The next week I was offered a position to be a member of the Kaiser Industries Advisory Board.
You must remember in this time period (1963-1969) Medgar Evers, John Kennedy, Malcom X, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated; and the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland.
I am a West Oakland street person and I already had a neighborhood jacket of always being in the streets. Also, I was a key member of the Afro-American Association, which was the main group in Black Oakland before the Black Panther Party. AAA was responsible for Black Oakland changing from using the term “Negro” to “Black” or “African American” and we also created the Black Handshake; and in general, we were responsible for getting the study of Black Culture message out to Black Oakland.
To be continued: Part 6B
Follow Ed Howard’s story! Click the link for episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5: www.westoaklandstories.org
Pic 1: Ed Howard giving instruction in the Kaiser Engineers Design room. 1963-64.
Pic 2: 1966 Letter from Oakland’s Roosevelt Junior High School welcoming Ed Howard as guest speaker.
Pic 3: WOSPSM “Black handshake” logo.
Pic 4: Ed Howard present day.
Friends, I hope you enjoyed the first five posts in our series detailing the life of Oakland original pioneer, film maker, engineer, TV host, night club owner–just to name a few titles–Mr. Ed Howard.
Be sure to check out the West Oakland Stories short historical film, as well as the brief documentary “Between Black & White” detailing the historical alliances between Greek & Black communities. Both videos are not to be missed! Among one another, let’s put the No Negative Speak movement into practice.
In our sixth segment, a two-part story especially timely given the current civil rights movement in our streets, Mr. Howard in his own words shares memories from his role in Oakland’s political movements of the 1960’s.
Follow Ed Howard’s story! Click the link for episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5: www.westoaklandstories.org
Apollo Papafrangou
West Oakland Stories Positive Feeling Movement Inc – No Negative Speak With each other.
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