510Day was born at Lake Merritt. It was born from a community that watched a group of dancers and drummers get detained for hours cuz an angry white man was tired of the “noise”; a Black unhoused man get attacked by a white jogger who threw all his belongings into the Lake; a Black man finish running the Lake to come back to his car covered with racial slurs; a 10-year-old Black child playing drums at the park get police called on him because white people thought his music was a nuisance; a white MAGA supporter wielding a red hat and machete harass Black and Brown folks kicking it at the Lake; a Black man shot dead by police while he was napping his car during his lunch break; a series of laws being created for Lake Merritt, but only enforced on Black folks; a Black family get the police called on them for grilling on a Sunday afternoon.
We decided to respond not with defeat, but with presence, resilience and joy. Thousands showed up. We Still Here.
510Day took root in 2016 as a grassroots community gathering at Lake Merritt, in direct opposition to how Black and Brown residents were being targeted and criminalized in public spaces we historically called our own. Our communities in the flatlands have faced increased criminalization, displacement, erasure, and homelessness under the agenda of gentrification. Newcomers have increasingly responded to the people and culture here in hostile, dangerous, and even deadly ways – particularly toward Black and Brown residents. Hanging out with friends, celebrating our cultures, and breaking bread with family in public are acts of resistance in an era of erasure.
510Day has a ten-point political platform. It has organizations, organizers, and history. It is organic, grassroots, and deeply rooted in the conditions that made it necessary. 510Day is not a brand. It is not a night market. It is not a revenue stream.
What began as four dozen Black, Raza, Indigenous, and Pilipino working class folks coming together for a potluck with a jam session, a sound system, and double dutch has grown into a multi-stage event that draws 5,000 attendees. No permits. No sponsors. No permission. No police. Just the Town showing up for itself and demanding an end to gentrification and the long overdue investment in the families of the flatlands.
We are breaking this pattern of co-optation and cultural appropriation here with 510Day.
Needa Bee, 510Day Organizing Committee
We are aware that elected City of Oakland officials, bureaucrats, and a small group of opportunistic community members are discussing an attempt to take over 510Day and turn it into an “official,” ticketed, or corporate sponsor-driven event.
Their goal is to secure paychecks and generate corporate revenue for a financially struggling City Hall. These conversations are happening behind closed doors, with no accountability to the movement, platform, or communities 510Day was built to serve. Attempting to invoke the spirit and cultural weight of 510Day to fund a City government that authored the very policies and blueprint of Oakland’s gentrification and recolonization is the antithesis of what this day represents.
Using 510Day to get a paycheck is in direct opposition to everything this movement was built on.
We have seen this co-optation before. We watched 415Day, born out of resistance, get hollowed out and handed to promoters and the San Francisco Department of Tourism.
We watched First Fridays: a ten-year-old event with zero funding and permits and 37,000 attendees whittled down to a three-block event that struggles to stay open month to month.
We have seen it with the 47-year-old Black August Movement, rooted in Black Liberation and the abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex, where City government and nonprofits have attempted to redefine a month of fasting, combat training, education, and recommitment to free all U.S. political prisoners and abolish the prison industry into a block party that celebrates Blackness while its political core is erased.
And we watched it happen when the Oakland A’s, a team that was genuinely woven into the fabric of this city for generations, threw a ‘510 Day’ celebration at the Coliseum in 2019, wrapping themselves in Oakland culture and using the name of our movement as a marketing hook. That team belonged to us once. The ownership that took the deal to leave did not. They used the culture, sold the tickets, and then abandoned the city that raised them. We are breaking this pattern of co-optation and cultural appropriation here with 510Day.
Oakland is the land of the Ohlone people. It is the birthplace of the Black Panther Party. It is Tupac’s spiritual home and the home of Too $hort, Marshawn Lynch, Ricky Henderson, Everett & Jones, the East Bay Dragons, and generations of working-class Black, Brown, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native families who built something real here. That identity is under threat.
510Day exists because that identity is worth fighting for. We will not allow that resistance to be repackaged and sold back to us as a party without a purpose.
Additional information, including the full ten-point platform, historical documentation, and event updates, is available at 510day.org.
The founding organizers of 510Day include Needa Bee, Leon DNas Sykes, and Jordan Warren. The 510Day Organizing Committee includes The Village in Oakland, The Lumpia Ladies, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), Young Women’s Freedom Center – YWFC, Joyous De Asis Miralle, Champ Green, Nadi B, Mellanique “Black” Robicheaux, Art Tha Plug, Days Like This, Distributed Sound Collective, Honey Gold Jasmine, Turf Dancer Telice, and Yero Massamba.
Be the first to comment