Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Exodus of blacks saddens Oakland - Inside Bay Area : “If new estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week are correct, Oakland has about 27,000 fewer African-Americans than it did in 2000. Many local experts and officials question the magnitude of that decline, and the methods census officials use for measuring it, but few doubt that the actual drop has been significant. In 1980, the census counted about 47 percent of Oakland as African-American, the highest census rate reported after a four-decade growth spurt. Today, after three decades of decline, the estimate is closer to 31 percent.”