Sidney Dearing was a hugely successful Oakland businessman and became the first Black homeowner in Piedmont when he bought a house in January 1924. But within a year, Dearing, his wife and two young children were forced out.
“Much of the time that they were in that home, a 500-person mob showed up at their doorstep. Multiple bombs were left in the vicinity of their home. There were threatening letters, threatening to lynch them, which, I think, is a fact most people wouldn’t associate with California,” said Leah Aden, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund…