Over 100 years ago, the first Black family to live in an affluent California neighborhood was chased out of town, citing threats of racist mob violence. Now, the descendants of Sidney Dearing are claiming what’s rightfully theirs in the form of a lawsuit. However, to truly understand what’s at stake for the Dearing family, you must start at the very beginning.
The year is 1924. While in the midst of the economic boom known as the Roaring ’20s, Dearing, the owner of a popular jazz club in Oakland called The Creole Cafe, and his wife boldly made the decision to move to Piedmont, Calif., as reported by SF Gate. The predominantly white “sundown town” is located just outside of Oakland. But as the Dearings began to make a life for themselves, trouble soon rose in the form of racist residents and police.
The couple endured months of verbal abuse and physical attacks from neighbors, but things came to a head when a mob of 500 descended onto the Dearing property and demanded they leave town. The police chief– a known member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the official Dearing website– did practically nothing to protect the Black family.
The Dearings stood strong, however, until the city took them to court, declaring that the Dearings had to hand over their property in order to make way for the construction of a road. With that, the Black family fled Piedmont, and the road was never built.
Today, in 2026, the Dearing property is worth a whopping $2 million, and Piedmont remains a predominantly-white area. But while the city has since honored the contributions and struggles of the Dearings in the form of a local park, the couple’s great-granddaughter, Jordana Ackerman, says that’s simply not enough.
That’s why she’s suing the city of Piedmont, demanding financial compensation and a formal apology. The Feb. 2 lawsuit was filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Seyfarth Shaw LLP in Alameda County on behalf of Ackerman. She alleged the city conspired against her ancestors to run them out of town, and not only was that illegal, but the impact is still visible today.
“This lawsuit seeks to right some of the many wrongs and compensate for the hopes and dreams, generational wealth, and opportunities that the City denied my family through lies and violence rooted in racial discrimination,” she wrote in a press release.
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