SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A descendant of one of the first Black homeowners in Piedmont, California, filed a lawsuit Monday, claiming her great-grandfather endured racial discrimination and was forced to sell his home through intimidation, terror and fraud by the Bay Area city.

Sidney Dearing, a Black man, bought his home in January 1924 on Wildwood Avenue in Piedmont, a small Oakland Hills community, for his wife and two children. Dearing was the owner of the jazz club Creole Cafe in West Oakland.

The plaintiff, Dearing's great-granddaughter Jordana Ackerman, states in the complaint filed in the Superior Court of Alameda County that during the 1920s, Piedmont "prided itself on being an exclusive enclave of white professionals and business executives, with no Black residents and few foreign-born residents" and was a "probable" sundown town.

After a 1923 "whites-only" restriction on property ownership in Piedmont expired, Dearing's white mother-in-law purchased the home with Dearing's money, and the family moved in. Once it became known that a Black person owned a home in the affluent city, "Piedmont residents, encouraged and aided by city officials, immediately began a campaign to forcibly remove him and his family," the plaintiff says.  

Under the federal Fair Housing Act passed in 1968, it became illegal to discriminate against homeowners based on race; however, banks continued to refuse loan or mortgage offers to potential Black owners.  

Starting in March 1924, according to the plaintiff, the city colluded with residents to buy Dearing out of the property, and after he refused several offers, a 500-person mob rioted in front of his home, saying the Piedmont police chief at the time was a well-known member of the Ku Klux Klan and refused to protect the Dearings.

"The mob dispersed only after Dearing agreed to meet one week later to discuss arrangements for selling the property," the plaintiff says in the complaint.  "Thereafter, having only resided in their new home a few months, Dearing's wife and two daughters moved out of the city for their own safety, and Dearing was forced to hire private protection."

However, Dearing refused Piedmont's offer, and the City Council subsequently passed a unanimous resolution to condemn the property. An action was filed with the Superior Court on June 19, 1924, to condemn it in order to build a road.

"The true goal of the city's condemnation action was to oust Dearing and his family from Piedmont because they were Black people," says Ackerman.

"Throughout this period, both before and after the condemnation action was instituted, the Dearings were subject to persistent harassment, terror, threats of violence and actual violence."

The plaintiff says bombs were discovered on the property, gunshots were fired out of a car window toward the house, and bricks were thrown through windows with letters by the Ku Klux Klan attached, threatening to lynch Dearing.

Dearing sold the property, which the plaintiff says is now worth $2 million, to Piedmont in January 1925. The city, in turn, sold it to a white person in August 1925, and a road was never built. It wasn't until a few decades later that another Black family bought property in Piedmont.

In 2022 and 2023, according to the plaintiff, the Piedmont Park Commission started development of a memorial dedicated to the Dearing family, due to "newly discovered interest in appealing to contemporary sensibilities about righting past racial injustice" and after admitting its part in discriminating against the family.

Ackerman did not know of Piedmont's deception until she looked further into the history, specifically regarding the condemnation action, and in March 2025, presented a claim to Piedmont for reparations.

"Ultimately, the city delayed and failed to make any effort to negotiate," the plaintiff says.

Ackerman, represented by Seyfarth Shaw and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, seeks compensatory and punitive damages, restitution and a declaration by Piedmont that it continues to be unjustly enriched by its actions toward the Dearing family and violated equal protection under the California Constitution.

Ackerman's attorneys and the city of Piedmont did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Source: Courthouse News Service