A descendant of the first Black family to own a home in affluent Piedmont, California, is suing the city for forcing her great-grandfather to sell his home and inducing the family to flee nearly a century ago amid threats of mob violence by white residents. Sidney Dearing and his family were driv en from their home in 1925 through threats, violence, terror, and what the lawsuit deems a fraudulent use of eminent domain by the city. The civil lawsuit filed by his descendants against the city of Piedmont now seeks restitution for the loss of their property and generational wealth. The home is now worth $2 million. The complaint filed on Feb. 2 by Jordana Ackerman on behalf of the Dearing family estate in Alameda County Superior Court (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star) chronicles the stark ways in which city officials, including the police chief, conspired to wrest the valuable property away from the family for openly racist reasons, which current city leaders fulsomely acknowledge. Sidney and Irene Dearing. (Photo: Sidney Dearing Family via sidneydearing.com) Sidney Dearing was a businessman who owned a successful jazz club and eatery, the Creole Cafe in West Oakland. In January 1924, Dearing and his wife, Irene, became the first Black homeowners of Piedmont by purchasing a house at 67 Wildwood Avenue in a neighborhood of stately manses overlooking the San Francisco Bay, and moved in with their two children. At the time, the lawsuit says, Piedmont prided itself on being an exclusive enclave of white professionals, with no Black residents. Due to laws and racially restrictive covenants prohibiting Black people from owning property, Dearing’s white mother-in-law purchased the property for $10,000 using Dearing’s money and then transferred the property to Dearing and his wife. The specific whites-only restriction in the deed to the property expired in 1923, and may not have precluded the sale, the lawsuit notes. In any case, when white residents and officials discovered that Dearing was Black and now owned the property, they began a campaign to forcibly remove him and his family. In March 1924, residents protested to the city about the sale of the property to a Black family, and the city colluded with residents to try to buy Dearing out for less than what he paid for it. Dearing declined and soon began receiving threatening letters demanding he either sell or rent the property to white people. On the evening of May 6, 1924, an angry mob of 500 white people rioted in front of the Dearings’ property, demanding that he sell it and leave the city. Reports of the event in a local newspaper said the city’s police chief, Burton Becker, who was an open member of the Ku Klux Klan, refused to protect the family or to deter the mob. A county sheriff took it upon himself to step in, the lawsuit says. The crowd dispersed only after the Dearings agreed to meet one week later to discuss arrangements for selling the property, the complaint says. Concerned for their safety, Irene Dearing and the couple’s two daughters moved out of the city, and Sidney Dearing hired private protection. Local newspapers covered efforts by the City of Piedmont and its white residents to force Sidney and Irene Dearing to sell their Bay Area home in 1924. (Photos: Fresno Bee (left) and San Francisco Examiner (right) via sidneydearing.com) In a letter dated May 17, 1924, the city attorney offered Dearing $8,000 for the property and demanded that he leave town or the city would start condemnation proceedings. Dearing countered that he would not sell “under peaceful conditions for less than $15,000, and that under present harsh conditions for nothing less than $25,000,” noting that $10,000 of the price was for “the surrender of constitutional rights.” Throughout this period, the Dearings faced persistent harassment, terror, threats of violence, and actual violence. Multiple bombs were found on the Dearing property, including one that Dearing reportedly found on his lawn with its fuse sputtering, which he snuffed out with his feet. Gunshots were fired through the window of a car stopped in front of the property, and bricks were thrown through the home’s windows. The local police declined to investigate or intercede, according to newspaper accounts. When Dearing refused to accept the city’s lowball purchase offer, the city council passed a resolution to condemn the property, declaring that the city needed it to build a public road between Wildwood Avenue and Fairview Avenue. The true goal, the lawsuit contends, was “to oust Dearing and his family from Piedmont because they were Black.” On May 29, 1924, the Oakland Tribune quoted then-mayor Oliver Elsworth as stating, “The matter of condemning the Dearing [P]roperty and building this street will be for the improvement of the city as well as to make the negro [Dearing] move from Piedmont.” In their response to the condemnation action, the Dearings, represented by two Black lawyers, responded that the city sought to take the property “solely for the reason” that Dearing and his wife “are members of the African race, and it hurts the pride” of the city and its residents “to have an African as a resident in its midst.” The Alameda County Court endorsed the city’s purported purpose for seizing the property and set a trial date to determine the value of the property. Meanwhile, the KKK sent letters to Dearing threatening to lynch him during the condemnation proceedings, the lawsuit says. Under pressure from city and county officials, and the ongoing terror campaign, on Jan. 29, 1925, Dearing agreed to settle the condemnation action and to sell the property. Three months later, the Oakland Tribune published an ad for the city’s sale of the property, which said, “Must be sold. Best offer buys.” On Aug. 4, 1925, the city sold the property to a private citizen, who was white. No road through the seized property was ever built. Sidney and Irene Dearing divorced in 1925, shortly after the forcible sale of their home, which they had lived in for less than a year. According to Dearing’s death certificate, he died in Oakland in 1953 of starvation. He was impoverished and is buried in an unmarked grave in Martinez, the Bay City News reported. Due to racially discriminatory zoning laws and bank redlining practices, the complaint says, it wasn’t until three decades later that another Black person owned residential property in Piedmont, which is still only 2 percent Black, according to 2020 U.S. Census records. Now the family is seeking compensation for the loss of generational wealth and access to education they should have enjoyed as taxpaying citizens. The property is now worth over $2 million, and the public schools in Piedmont are among the best public school districts in California and the country, the complaint asserts, with students ranked third among all unified California districts in 2023 for both English and math proficiency. The suit seeks compensatory damages that include the increased value of the lost property, the value of tax revenue the city collected from the property over the years, punitive damages, an official apology from the city for its deceptive and fraudulent activity to force the sale, and other remedies. The lawsuit acknowledges that since 2022, the city has publicly admitted its role in the discriminatory ouster of the Dearing family. In 2023, the city embarked on an effort to create an interactive public memorial honoring Sidney and Irene Dearing on a site across from the home, hiring acclaimed Black designer Walter Hood and budgeting $417,250 for the project. The memorial, which recognizes the Dearings’ “trials and tribulations,” is scheduled to be installed this summer. Ackerman was contacted by the city to participate in the planning of the memorial, and through her involvement, she learned about the specifics of the city’s false representations to her great-grandparents, the lawsuit says. In March 2025, she tried to negotiate with the city for some form of direct reparations for herself and other heirs to the estate, which the city entertained for a period but ultimately stopped discussing with the family. The compensation the Dearings seek “is consistent with how other localities in California and across the nation have begun to confront other racially motivated takings that have harmed Black individuals and communities,” said Arnold E. Brown II, one of the attorneys representing the family, in an emailed statement. He noted that officials in Bruce Beach, Palm Springs, Santa Monica, and other areas of California have apologized and provided compensation, among other measures, “to redress similar harms borne out of racially motivated land loss.”  “These forcible expulsions must be acknowledged and repaired, and Piedmont has the authority and resources to do so,” Leah Aden, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, also representing the plaintiff, told Bay City News.The city of Piedmont said in an emailed statement to Atlanta Black Star on Thursday that it “is aware of the news articles regarding a lawsuit,” but had not been served. “What Sidney and Irene Dearing experienced 100 years ago was abhorrent, and is a shameful chapter in the community’s history.  It does not reflect the values of the community today,” the statement continued.“The City is creating a permanent memorial to ensure the Dearing family’s experience is never forgotten, using a set of guiding principles developed through dialogue with members of the Dearing family. The memorial is an important part of the community’s commitment to honest reckoning with the past as we work together to build a more welcoming, inclusive future. “The City’s commitment to the memorial project remains unchanged.” The city of Piedmont has 30 days after being served with the lawsuit to file a response. First Black Family to Own a Home in Wealthy California Neighborhood Says White Residents Forced Them Out with Threats of Violence— Now the City Faces a Reckoning ...read more read less