By Sooji Nam
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OAKLAND, California (KPIX) — The 7th Street Oakland Walk of Fame pays tribute to the city’s musical history, but now members of the West Coast Blues Society are faced with the cost of replacing 40 bronze plaques that were stolen from the historic neighborhood.
“You’re looking at what was four plaques of different artists who performed on 7th Street. You’re looking at the history that we tried to perpetuate by putting the plaques in,” Ronnie K. Stewart, the executive director of West Coast Blues Society, told CBS News Bay Area. “You’re just walking and you see Etta James, or B.B. King, or Aretha Franklin. You see their names and say, ‘Wait a minute!’”
Stewart founded the West Coast Blues Society, a group of musicians and artists across the Bay Area that keeps the spirit of blues, jazz and gospel alive.
“Bobby “Blue” Bland, Al Green, Etta James, they all performed there in their early part of their careers,” he said.
Stewart is referring to Esther’s Orbit Room, an iconic jazz club, where legendary musicians played in Oakland.
“I remember when this street was very vibrant. I was about 10 years old and I’d come down and buy cigarettes for my mother,” Stewart remembered.
While all the businesses are boarded up now, there was a time the block of 7th Street was referred to as the “Harlem of the West Coast.”
“History got lost because of the downfall of 7th Street,” Stewart said.
That is why he spearheaded the installation of nearly 180 plaques to commemorate the lost bit of cultural history in Oakland. Stewart said with the manufacturing and installation of the plaques, replacing the ones that were stolen is going to cost about $150,000.
“Why come and take up something like that? Our awards that’s on the streets?” Oakland artist Lee Ashford told CBS News Bay Area. “I grew up down here on 7th Street. I did my music down here. I was on the plaque.”
“We went out and procured all of the possibility of giving 7th Street what it should be. And for someone to come in and destroyed the things that we immortalized and try to recognize the people from the Bay Area,” singer “Terrible” Tom Bowden Jr. told CBS News Bay Area. “What we need to do better is come together. That’s what we need to do together. There’s a lot of violence, and a lot of things going down here.”
The West Coast Blues Society has started a GoFundMe to raise money for the stolen plaques. Members hope that someone will come forward with information on who was behind this.
“You stole history. You stole the piece of history that has been kept over for 90 years,” Stewart said.
He added that he filed a report with Oakland police, and encouraged anyone with information to provide it to police in the hopes it will lead to the suspect or suspects.
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