SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO

Better Future:
Introduction

 

August 7, 2020

Black Lives Matter, Better Future

Black Lives Matter. The moment of reckoning has never felt closer than it does right now. We have to act, we need to transform, and the time is past due. Design can either serve to reinforce the systems of oppression and white supremacy or begin to dismantle them, but it is not neutral.

We want our work to reflect our values, creating a design practice that is inclusive, equitable, and transformative. We are questioning the conventional practices of landscape architecture, and looking for concrete changes and actions that we can make. 

The movement that has occupied the streets, public discourse, and digital spaces since the death of George Floyd has moved us. We know posts, words, and images are not sufficient actions in themselves. We outlined commitments below and will continue to develop this aspect of our business over time. We welcome your input and thoughts on how to create positive change as landscape designers.

✚ Saving a portion of our revenue to be donated to Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities directly or to allied non-profit organizations in the Bay Area

✚ Finding opportunities to contribute pro-bono services (minimum 40 hours/year)

✚ Seeking out BIPOC collaborators and vendors, e.g. Buying plant material from BIPOC-led nurseries

✚ Finding a second life for high-quality landscape materials from our project sites by connecting with organizations supporting the BIPOC community

CHAPTER I

PROTEST

Please be advised some of the text and event names contain historic language and terms that are offensive.

Black Lives Matter, Better Future

Better Future is a series investigating the complex history of race and landscape in the Bay Area. We wanted to make space for the narratives that had been written out, undervalued, and undermined. Our aim is to root out the default history we'd learned, such that a more representative and honest history can take up residence.

In looking through historic newspapers and archival photographs, we see the actual mechanisms, language, and images of systemic racism and they resonate so clearly with what we see today:

The no-knock raid on a house in West Oakland in 1966 detailed in the Flatlands Newspaper.

The real estate advertisements for Rockridge and Piedmont stating ‘no Negroes, no Chinese, no Japanese’ can buy land or build property. The 1937 redlining map of Alameda County that overlays with current maps of gentrification so perfectly. The KKK vice president who was police chief in Piedmont, then elected to being the sheriff of Alameda County in 1926. 

However, despite the ruinous backdrop and the bias of whose stories are told, there is also so much evidence of resistance, community, and resilience. Evidence that our current moment, as many great civil rights leaders have said, builds on the legacy of so many other’s sacrifices and actions.

SOFT STUDIO

THE BIG COLORED PARADE, SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER, 1961

Protestors marched down Market Street to City Hall in solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama, and for equal rights in San Francisco.

People march down Market Street in San Francisco, a space normally reserved for bustling cars and people, a space for commerce and business. Here we see the street taken over by protesters. This act is transformative and powerful because it defies the ordinary purpose for which the space is designed. All of a sudden, this participatory action takes form and overturns the power structures that exist, reorienting the space, at least momentarily. 

In this sense, the action of participating in protest becomes a form of space in itself. The power of this space lies within its scale, temporality, and fluidity, and its ability to dismantle the status quo.

THE MORNING CALL SAN FRANCISCO, SEPTEMBER 1893

SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO

NEGRO BOILERMAKERS STRIKE, MARIN SHIPYARDS, SAUSALITO NOVEMBER 1943

Joseph James led protests and the legal struggle against discrimination at Sausalito’s WWII shipyards. The Boilermakers, the chief shipyard union, would not grant Black shipbuilders membership, forcing them into segregated auxiliary unions that were denied full union privileges and opportunities.

"NIGHTMARE IN OAKLAND, ANOTHER CASE OF POLICE BRUTALITY"

THE FLATLANDS, VOLUME 1, NO. 4 OAKLAND 1966

SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO

"SNCC OFFICE RAIDED"

THE FLATLANDS, VOLUME 2, NO. 3/4 OAKLAND 1967

SOFT STUDIO

BLACK PANTHER PARTY LEADER KATHLEEN CLEAVER AND OTHER BLACK PANTHER PARTY MEMBERS IN A PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, 1968

Space is cultural. The gatherings, movements, and marches have transformed the meaning of so much of the Bay Area’s landscape, whether they remain visible or not.

For instance, De Fremery Park in West Oakland evolved from a private Victorian estate in the 1860s, to a recreational park, and then to a primary organizing space for the Black Panther Party, including Free Huey Rallies pictured below.

De Fremery Park is now unofficially named Lil' Bobby Hutton Memorial Park to carry the legacy of Bobby Hutton, a Black Panther leader who was killed by Oakland police officers during the shoot-out in 1968. Lil' Bobby Hutton Day has been celebrated at the park every year since April 1998. Today, the park continues to be a site for Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

SOFT STUDIO

THE DE FREMERY MANSION IN THE 1860's

BLACK PANTHER COUPLE LISTENING FREE HUEY RALLY IN DEFREMERY PARK, OAKLAND, CA 1968

SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO
SOFT STUDIO

STUDENTS PROTEST AGAINST SEGREGATION, FILLMORE STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, MAY 1963

INTEGRATION MARCH, EAST PALO ALTO, SEPTEMBER 1963

SOFT STUDIO

THE BIG COLORED PARADE,

SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER, 1961

BLM, Black Lives Matter

Through historical primary sources, we are able to see how the streets and parks we walk through today have borne witness to great discrimination, violence, and injustice, as well as powerful movements for liberation.

We are struck by the familiarity of historic accounts of police brutality and the government criminalizing protesters and organizations, as we see the same violence and denial taking place today. We are humbled by the past and present efforts of Black revolutionaries, communities, and organizers to fight oppression. Knowing that collective resistance has long brought life into our streets and parks, and that it will continue to do so, brings us hope in an otherwise dark time.

 

In solidarity,

Clementine and Jessie

SOFT STUDIO

1. PINS Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1900 - 2000. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/c2d0e760-6be8-0135-fecc-43b331f87d4a

2. IMAGE “‘Big Colored Parade’ -- Market Street to City Hall.” 26 May, 1963. California Digital Library, content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb5c6007kt/?&brand=calisphere.

3. IMAGE “‘Big Colored Parade’ -- Market Street to City Hall.” 26 May, 1963. California Digital Library, content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb5c6007kt/?&brand=calisphere.

4. NEWSPAPER San Francisco Call, Volume 74, Number 97, 5 September 1893.California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, http://cdnc.ucr.edu.

5. IMAGE “Negro Boiler Maker’s Strike.”  California Digital Library, https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb5z09p0p8/?order=4&brand=oac4.

6. NEWSPAPER“The Flatlands Newspaper Collection.” Volume 1 No. 4. Oakland Public Library Digital Collections, oakland.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/deliverableUnit_f6514b25-c0d5-47f3-87dc-47b469246ba3/.

7. NEWSPAPER “The Flatlands Newspaper Collection.” Volume 2 No. 3 and 4. Oakland Public Library Digital Collections, oakland.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/deliverableUnit_f6514b25-c0d5-47f3-87dc-47b469246ba3/.

8. IMAGE “Kathleen Cleaver and Panthers in Prosecution's office” The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive, BANC PIC 1959.010--NEG, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

9. IMAGE “De Fremery Park and Recreation Center West Oakland.” FoundSF, 2015, http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=De_Fremery_Park_and_Recreation_Center_West_Oakland.

10. IMAGE “Black Panther Couple Listening, Free Huey Rally, De Fremery Park” Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones Photograph Collection. https://calisphere.org/item/8438e07208d6e4fee4697039cd64d91f/.

11. IMAGE “Students Protest Against Segregation -- Fillmore Street” The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin newspaper photograph archive, BANC PIC 1959.010--NEG, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

12. IMAGE “Integration March -- East Palo Alto.” Online Archive of California, oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb4j49n9nq/?brand=oac4.

13. IMAGE “‘Big Colored Parade’ -- Market Street to City Hall.” 26 May, 1963. California Digital Library, content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb5c6007kt/?&brand=calisphere.

14. IMAGE “‘Big Colored Parade’ -- Market Street to City Hall.” 26 May, 1963. California Digital Library, content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb5c6007kt/?&brand=calisphere.