For the past year, I’ve been part of a team developing Rooted in Richmond, a free app that allows visitors to take a self-guided tour through the city’s history. The tour covers 16 locations over 6 miles and includes maps, photos, videos, 3D renderings of historic objects, and more. Topics range from sacred Ohlone shellmounds to the formation of environmental justice groups in the wake of a toxic industrial accident. 

Now that the app has launched, I wanted to share a preview of the oral histories I gathered to accompany various tour stops. In this episode, you’ll hear audio clips featuring:

–Shirley Ann Wilson Moore on how Black residents stood up against a front yard cross-burning

–Flora Ninomiya on what happened to flower nurseries owned by Japanese-Americans during World War II

–Melinda McCrary on saving a long-long treasure from a flooded basement

–Ahmad Anderson on how Martin Luther King Jr’s visit inspired a generation of Black political leaders

–Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez on the remarkable transformation of a trash-strewn lot into a community oasis

-Bonus segment: Shirley Ann Wilson Moore on why so many blues clubs were run by women

Joining me on today’s episode is Desiree Heveroh, a born and raised Richmondite who is currently the innkeeper at Point Richmond’s historic Hotel Mac and also a live-in caretaker aboard the SS Red Oak Victory, the last surviving vessel manufactured at the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II. Desiree is also the former director of the Richmond Museum of History and Culture and she spent the first 14 months of the pandemic living in Richmond’s oldest building, the East Brother Light Station, which was built on a tiny island in the Bay in 1873.

For more info and to see photos related to this episode, visit https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/rooted-in-richmond/