Piedmont’s Past, Present, and Promise: A Walk to the Dearing Memorial Site

It was a sunny, spring-like morning last Wednesday when our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group assembled at the Exedra for our weekly walk. There was a large turnout of 50 walkers and six K-9 best friends on hand for it.

February is recognized as Black History Month. This was the first Wednesday of the month and an opportunity for us to consider the contributions that African Americans have made to our country and also the hardships and discrimination they have experienced. This is a national recognition but also a local one. A sad piece of Piedmont’s Black history is the Sidney and Irene Dearing family’s attempt to live in Piedmont in 1924.

A much more positive, current development is that the City of Piedmont is in the process of creating a Sidney and Irene Dearing Memorial in the redwood park at Magnolia and Wildwood Avenues. It is across the street from where the Dearings briefly lived.

We started the morning by talking about our personal experiences relating to Black history and then went off to our first destination, the Dearings’ home on Wildwood Avenue. We went down Magnolia Avenue and stopped in front of this house where the Dearings’ history was shared. Meghan Bennett’s website, https://www.sidneydearing.com/, has newspaper articles of the time. It was reported that Dearing was a successful café owner “whose blood is Indian and white, but sufficient of the black to mark him negro.” He was born in Texas in 1870, arrived in Oakland in 1907, and by 1918 was the proprietor of the popular Creole Café in Oakland. It featured New Orleans-style jazz, big-band music, and Southern cooking.

Their Piedmont house was purchased for $10,000 in January 1924 by Dearing’s mother-in-law, who was White. She transferred its ownership to Dearing and his biracial wife, Irene. When this was learned by other Piedmonters, the Dearings were subjected to harassment, threats, and violence. A Piedmont citizens committee offered to buy the home from Dearing for $3,000 more than was paid for it, if he and his family would leave the city, but he refused. The City said if he didn’t accept the offer and move, it would start condemnation and eminent domain proceedings so that an extension of Fairview Avenue could be created to Wildwood Avenue.

During this contentious period, a brick was thrown through the window of Darling’s home and a bomb large enough to damage several blocks was found at the home. The Alameda County sheriff provided protection for the home, but the Piedmont chief of police, who as a member of the KKK, did not.

In May of that year, a crowd of more than 500 people gathered in front of the Dearings’ home and refused to disperse until Dearing agreed to sell the house and leave Piedmont. He finally did agree saying he would accept $25,000, $15,000 of which was for “the surrender of his constitutional rights.” Dearing sold the home in February 1925 and he and his family moved back to Oakland. He died in 1953 in Oakland at the age of 83.

As we were finishing this history, Echa Schneider, the City of Piedmont’s Communications Officer, was surprisingly coming down Wildwood to be with us. She had heard we were planning on visiting the site for the Dearing Memorial and wanted to tell us about the City’s project.

Echa and our group went across Wildwood and took a group photo by the back side of the park and then we entered the wonderful redwood grove where Echa told us about the project. In 2020 the Piedmont City Council adopted a resolution committing to examine Piedmont’s racial history as part of its continuing efforts to be an inclusive and equitable community. Echa said the Dearing Project formally began in May 2022 when the City Council directed the Park Commission to develop recommendations for a memorial. The council also voted to name the area the “Earing Family Memorial Park.”

A Park Commission subcommittee talked with descendants of the Dearings and others to develop a set of guiding project principles. The family wanted to be sure that Irene Dearing was included in the recognition and that the Dearing family’s full story was told, not just their Piedmont experience. The family members also wanted the memorial to be designed by a local Black artist.

In October 2023, the City engaged Oakland-based landscape architect Walter Hood of Hood Design Studio to develop memorial designs. City design parameters included that no trees would be removed and that the memorial would be visible from the street. Progress was delayed as the City focused on construction of the dispatch center and community pool, but with those projects now largely completed, the City’s attention has returned to the Dearing project.

In June 2025 Hood presented a preliminary, conceptual design for an interactive "sculptural portal" commemorating the Dearings. It is known as the “Dearing Portal” and features a 24-foot-tall, 4 to 6 foot wide steel-framed structure that includes a bench and interior seating space. The design incorporates elements of a home, including a doorway, window, and mailbox. Inside, interpretive features share the Dearings’ story and invite reflection on broader themes of racial exclusion and resilience. Looking up through the window, visitors see a red, 24-foot sculptural mailbox with the name “Dearing” serving as a visual and interpretive focal point. There would be an ever-changing background of mature redwood trees, while a mirror reflects a quote from artist Alicia Wormsley. Community members can learn more about the project and sign on as a community supporter at piedmont.ca.gov/Dearing.

This is a preliminary design, and the next phase will advance the concept into a final design that is ready for fabrication. The memorial will be built offsite and placed in the park by a crane. The memorial’s final form may evolve as the City works with the design team around site constraints and details of feasibility, fabrication, and installation. City staff anticipates completing design work this spring. Fabrication is expected to take several months, followed by one to two months of on-site construction with completion anticipated in 2026.

The project is in the City’s fiscal year 2025–26 budget with a total expense of $417,250. Of that amount, $107,250 is allocated for design and construction-ready drawings. The remaining $250,000 is designated for fabrication of the structure, the foundation, transportation and installation of the artwork. The Piedmont Beautification Foundation is partnering with the City on fundraising efforts with a goal of raising $30,000 for the project.

After Echa concluded her remarks, a surprising bit of news was shared by some walkers. A lawsuit was filed this past Monday in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of one of the descendants of the Dearings by the Legal Defense Fund against the City of Piedmont for what their attorneys call was a fraudulent use of eminent domain to acquire the home. The descendant is now seeking a remedy for the loss of their property and generational wealth.

It was then time for us to make our return to the Exedra. We went up Wildwood past Wildwood School with lots of young, beautiful people also enjoying the sunshine, and then a walk through Piedmont Park on its lower trail with a nicely flowing Bushee Dell Creek nearby.