KPFA: Carroll Fife takes on incumbent in fierce Oakland council race over housing, policing
On a sunny Saturday morning in DeFremery Park in West Oakland, 50 people have come to knock on doors. There are ironworkers, students, democratic socialists, even Sunrise Movement climate activists — all here to support Carroll Fife, a candidate for Oakland city council in District 3.
“Who’s door knocking for the first time ever?” precinct captain Mary Schindler asks the crowd. Several hands go up. Everyone cheers. “Yes! You guys, that’s awesome!”
West Oakland is a historically Black neighborhood, rapidly gentrifying, and one of the epicenters of the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Last year, it was also the site of an action that drew national attention: A group of unhoused Black moms, calling themselves “Moms 4 Housing,” took over an empty investor-owned home, occupied it for over two months, and eventually — after heavily-armed sheriffs evicted them — forced the owner to sell the property to a land trust for conversion to permanently affordable housing. Carroll Fife, the Oakland director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, was a key organizer behind the moms’ action. Now she is trying to unseat the councilmember who represents the neighborhood, aiming heavy fire at the incumbent’s votes on policing and tenants’ rights.