Oakland celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party on Saturday by renaming a portion of a downtown street crucial to the political activist group’s history.
Community leaders, including Mayor Barbara Lee, commemorated the renaming of Broadway between 14th and 17th streets as Black Panther Party Boulevard, a designation unanimously approved by the Oakland City Council this month. The revolutionary group had distributed newspapers, registered voters and organized political rallies along the strip after its founding in October 1966.
Plaques will be installed along Broadway at 14th, 15th and 17th streets to commemorate the group, originally formed as a neighborhood patrol to monitor police interactions with Black communities…