Tales of the Town: A Love Letter to Oakland’s Black History

Monday, February 16, 2026

10:00 AM-11:50 AM

We are honored to host Abbas Muntaqim, an exceptional educator, organizer, filmmaker, and journalist affiliated with The People’s Program, the Tales of the Town multimedia project, and the Hella Black Podcast, based in Oakland, California. A co-founder of the Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center at UC Berkeley, Abbas Muntaqim has been deeply engaged in community-based education, student organizing, land and housing justice movements, and Black cultural production throughout the Bay Area.

The lecture will trace 100 years of Black history in Oakland, beginning with the Second Great Migration of the early twentieth century, when Black communities moved in significant numbers from the U.S. South to Oakland, profoundly reshaping the city’s social, political, and cultural landscape. From this historical foundation, the talk will explore the emergence of the Black Panther Party, the rise of the Black Power Movement, and the connections between these earlier struggles and contemporary student organizing efforts that ultimately led to the creation of the Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center.

This lecture directly supports the learning objectives of Black Geographies and The Black Atlantic by grounding theoretical discussions in a rich, place-based case study. Students will gain insight into how migration, racial capitalism, policing, education, and resistance intersect across space and time, and will examine how Black intellectual and political traditions continue to shape contemporary movements. As both a scholar-educator and community organizer, Abbas Muntaqim offers a rare opportunity to connect academic frameworks to lived experience, public history, and grassroots activism.

Contact Information

Khushi Patel
kp3248@drexel.edu