At this location in June 1967, the Anti-Poverty Center began working with a group of local activists who would soon be known as the Black Panther Party. Together, these young men organized in response to the danger posed by speeding traffic at this formerly-unmarked intersection. The Black Panthers and the Anti-Poverty Center asked the city to install a stoplight after several children at the nearby Santa Fe Elementary School were killed and others had been injured by motorists. However, the Oakland City Council denied the request. Rather than allowing another death at this intersection until the city would agree to install a light, members of the Black Panthers directed traffic at this intersection. The young men also escorted children across the busy intersection, and no further automobile-related deaths or injuries occurred. However, the Oakland Police began harassing and arresting the young men for directing traffic without authority. These confrontations between the Panthers and the Oakland Police led the Panthers to demand changes in the way the almost all-white police force operated.

During the 1960s, Bobby Seale lived with his parents and siblings at the home on 57th Street. Seale was the co-founder, along with Huey Newton, of the Black Panthers, and the organization often met at the residence.

Though it now occupies another location, Merritt College was originally located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, near the home of Black Panther co-founder, Bobby Seale. The college was a hotbed of political activity and was where Seale met Huey Newton. The pair founded the Black Panthers in 1966. The college also had the nation's first Black Studies Department, created in 1964.

In North Oakland, the It's All Good Bakery might appear to be an ordinary bake shop. But the building has a history not readily apparent from the outside. In the 1960s, the building was the original headquarters of the Black Panther Party.

The de Fremery House was built in 1864 in a Gothic Revival Style as the home of James de Fremery and his family. The house, which became known as "The Grove", was originally part of the Rancho San Antonio land grant. James de Fremery lived in the home up to his death in 1899 but his family members lived in the until the property was sold to the City of Oakland in 1910. The house is now used as the de Fremery Recreation Center. The de Fremery House was designated as an Oakland Landmark On November 17, 1981.

In August of 1989, the life of controversial Black Panther co-founder came to a violent end in an Oakland neighborhood, just two blocks from the original Panther headquarters.

Many people would not believe how much African American History was created and developed in Northern California. Most people remember a lot of riots and movements that transpired down in the southern California region around Los Angeles. Because of this, a museum was created and build to educate the many people that did not know what had happened in their own backyards. This museum was created to educate the Bay Area on how much has happened there when it comes to the African American lifestyle and struggles in the centuries before. The African American Museum and Library at Oakland was a creation of four people who started collecting oral histories and artifacts and in 1946 and their aspiration became a dream many will never forget.