Interview with Big Mama and her son Elder Titus

Big Mama is my pastor's wife from the Church of the Living God in Oakland. Elder Titus is one of her 9 children. It was impossible to record what they were saying word for word because it was very conversational, since I've known them most of my life. for that reason, I am not 100 percent sure who said what at times but Elder Titus did most of the talking. The following is paraphrased as close to the original as possible.

Question: How has the landscape changed?

1. Its changed so much until l I don’t even recognized some places anymore. There’s no more street cars a lot of the old buildings have been torn down. There was an avocado orchard near the car lot. Titus: train tracks going down 14^th street. Train going right down the middle of 105^th. Roasted peanuts. a lot of greenery used to be here. Alameda used to have a board walk and a fun-house. That’s where we used to go. You didn’t have to go to San Francisco. Lake Merritt used to be a great place to be. Huge bag of cookies at Mother’s Cookies for 25 cents. This more recent generation is deprived.

Question: What animals have came and gone?

1. 2. Same animals. Bad dogs and bad cats. This is not prehistoric age. Nothing has gone extinct! The farms have gone. Down 98^th where there are car places and buildings all of that was farm land for as far as the eye can see. Mostly greens and lettuce and a school. Over the ramp from Sobrante Park was what was then dag.

Question: What developments have made big impacts?

2. Kaiser hospital has expanded exponentially. It was that one only Kaiser building and now it’s a Faviola building and another over there . The coliseum was not there originally. The Oakland airport expanded tremendously. There’s been a migration of .. there are a lot of Caucasians on the flat lands and now they’ve moved up back to the hills but that’s coming back around again. There’s been a change of demographics in Oakland. There used to be a lot of Black owned business and now there aren’t anymore. There are Mexican businesses, and Chinese. There are a lot of churches. You have churches and liquor stores. A church on every corner and a liquor store on every corner. Port of Oakland has expanded exponentially. It’s a whole lot bigger than it was back in the days. They were able to dredge to make it bigger to get the large ships in. Down town Oakland has a lot of hotels. There used to be motels by the DMV and shortcuts also. A lot of business have moved in. Clorox building, URS, a lot of businesses have moved down town. Downtown used to be shopping and now its more commercial businesses, not retail anymore. The addition of free ways, because there are a lot more connections now. To go to San Francisco 580 connects to 880. Then the BART. They started building late 60s early 70s. Finished late 70s. from Oakland to San Francisco. They expanded from there. It was moved then further out to Hayward. Since 1947 for Big Mama and 52 years for Elder Titus.

Question: How has traffic and population changed?

3. When the businesses come in the people came in. People came here because the prices were reasonable. People who lived here moved out and people from different states moved in.

Question: Are than any policies to control population growth?

4. Nope. I don’t think so. Not here in Oakland not that I ‘m aware of.

Question: What is your favorite part of Oakland?

5. Big Momma: I don’t know. Elder Titus: A lot of people move here because its right off the water. It never gets too hot or too cold. Oakland technically is a very beautiful city. So many parks in the same area. Oakland if you think about it is a gorgeous city. Only problem is all these knuckleheads running around the city. People will not leave Oakland because, it has so much to offer.