Partner Profiles: Carolyn “CJ” Johnson — Black Cultural Zone
Author
Block, Inc.
Author
Block, Inc.
Partner Profiles is an interview series that spotlights Block’s community partners — both organizations and individuals — and the work they do to increase access to the economy.
In the inaugural installment of the series, Carolyn Johnson, CEO of Black Cultural Zone, talks to us about Oakland's Uptown Market and more.
When Oakland nonprofit EastSide Arts Alliance told Carolyn Johnson, known to colleagues and friends as “CJ,” that they were looking to hire an Executive Director for the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative, she did not hesitate to suggest other people for the job. She understood that running a nonprofit is not for the faint of heart. CJ thought her calling was in the private sector. With degrees from UCLA, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business, CJ had a background in real estate and a passion for deals, not nonprofits. But as she learned more about the organization and their plans for a hub in the neighborhood she grew up in, she realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “What I came to understand,” she said, “is that this is a movement.
In 2019, CJ served as the Executive Director of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative and as the founding CEO of the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation, a role she’s held since 2020. As Executive Director, CJ led a coalition of Black residents, leaders, organizers, and advocates to keep a place for Black culture in a 50-square-block area in East Oakland. As CEO, CJ started and led an emerging community development corporation with a plan to build ten Black Cultural Zone hubs in East Oakland, partner with the collaborative to build a thriving community in East Oakland, and connect this movement with other Black Cultural destinations nationwide.
Earlier this year, CJ and the BCZ collaborated with Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) to launch Uptown Market. The market is a retail space for vendors from Oakland’s cultural markets, located on the ground floor of Block’s downtown Oakland offices at 1955 Broadway. CJ talked to us from New Orleans (where she was attending a conference) about the Rise East Plan and commitment for East Oakland, her role with the BCZ, her vision for the Uptown Market, and more.
BLOCK: What is the Black Cultural Zone? What’s the mission of the organization?
CJ: The Black Cultural Zone is actually three things. It’s a geographic area from High Street in Oakland to the border of the cities of San Leandro and Oakland, from the hills to the water. It's a community development corporation, and it's a collaboration of organizations that support the vision of the Black Cultural Zone. And so what that vision is, in Oakland, is for our legacy Black community to remain, return, and rise in a thriving area that honors, elevates, and protects our legacy and future in the town we love.
I was born and raised in Oakland. In the late seventies, Oakland's population was 51 percent African-American, due primarily to redlining. Then the crack epidemic hit, predatory lending and subsequent foreclosures, and recently, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. All kinds of things have led to our community being less than 20 percent [of the Oakland population] and projected to be less than 10 percent by 2040.
And so we said, “We need a Black Cultural Zone to anchor our presence in Oakland." That's how it got started. [We] really focused on commercial corridors, thinking that if you have business here and jobs here, people can afford to stay. And so I joined in 2019 with my real estate development background. What we envision is that there will be a Black cultural area in this legacy city that will keep the memory of Black people, and hopefully retain and return a strong presence of Black people in this legacy area of East Oakland. Our vision doesn’t exclude other cultural groups, which, if you know Oakland, we love our cultural diversity. We just want to make sure we shall remain.
There are cultural zones all over this country that celebrate and elevate ethnic communities like Little Italy, Chinatown — people are used to that. But there has not been a safe, protected, and thriving Black Cultural Zone that celebrates our culture similarly in America. The history of African-Americans, it's different. We don't have the traditional immigrant story.
BLOCK: What is a typical day for you as CEO of the Black Cultural Zone?
CJ: On the move! After the BCZ was founded, it grew from three people to nearly 40 people. Now I spend more of my time looking outwards and building alliances, bringing in funding, and supporting our stakeholders, and also tend to the team that manages our programs.
BLOCK: Tell me about Uptown Market and how that collaboration with Block came to be.
CJ: Block has supported our economic development work. Again, I realized that we can't just build a marketplace without a pipeline of entrepreneurs; we have to incubate entrepreneurs who are able to sustain an actual brick-and-mortar presence. So, we started something called the AKOMA Market during the pandemic. We expanded that to taking those vendors on the road to festivals around Oakland.
So we'd been talking about a hub. [Block] asked if we'd be interested in using that space at Uptown Station to incubate and bring the best of Oakland cultural market vendors to that space. And it was like, absolutely! It gives our vendors an opportunity to see what it's like to have to get in at seven, and close at seven. [Editor’s note: Uptown Market’s holiday hours are Wednesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.]
BLOCK: What’s the response been since Uptown Market opened?
CJ: From customers, they're always amazed when they come in. It's such a beautiful space. It's so colorful and lively and we have a mix of retail and food, which gives people a reason to come. And we have events. So it's an experience. You’ve got to get people out of the house after the pandemic. It's a different world. The sellers are excited to be there.
BLOCK: As an East Oakland native, talk to me about the impact you've seen your work have?
CJ: I think the best way I can describe it is believing. The site in East Oakland called Liberation Park used to be a part of a thriving mall complex when I was younger, which ultimately became a police station. And then they abandoned it and it was overrun with weeds. And now we have created an oasis. And I think when people would hear me say, “We're going to have this roller-skating rink and outdoor movies at this abandoned site which was an eyesore,” they'd be like, “She is out of her mind.” And now it's there.
“The one thing I love to hear is that now our community members come to us with all kinds of ideas because they actually believe anything is possible.”
I think what's happened since the eighties is that absolute hope has been replaced with despair, and it was hard to believe that we could remain and thrive here. But now we can say, well, anything is possible. And believing in our ability to create what our vision of the future is, I think, is the most important thing.
BLOCK: What's your vision for the future of Uptown Market?
CJ: The vision is that we'll have a true representation of the diversity of vendors throughout Oakland. And that it will be a place where folks can innovate, they can test products, and they can grow their online marketplace.
Author
Block, Inc.
Partner Profiles is an interview series that spotlights Block’s community partners — both organizations and individuals — and the work they do to increase access to the economy.
In the inaugural installment of the series, Carolyn Johnson, CEO of Black Cultural Zone, talks to us about Oakland's Uptown Market and more.
When Oakland nonprofit EastSide Arts Alliance told Carolyn Johnson, known to colleagues and friends as “CJ,” that they were looking to hire an Executive Director for the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative, she did not hesitate to suggest other people for the job. She understood that running a nonprofit is not for the faint of heart. CJ thought her calling was in the private sector. With degrees from UCLA, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business, CJ had a background in real estate and a passion for deals, not nonprofits. But as she learned more about the organization and their plans for a hub in the neighborhood she grew up in, she realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “What I came to understand,” she said, “is that this is a movement.
In 2019, CJ served as the Executive Director of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative and as the founding CEO of the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation, a role she’s held since 2020. As Executive Director, CJ led a coalition of Black residents, leaders, organizers, and advocates to keep a place for Black culture in a 50-square-block area in East Oakland. As CEO, CJ started and led an emerging community development corporation with a plan to build ten Black Cultural Zone hubs in East Oakland, partner with the collaborative to build a thriving community in East Oakland, and connect this movement with other Black Cultural destinations nationwide.
Earlier this year, CJ and the BCZ collaborated with Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) to launch Uptown Market. The market is a retail space for vendors from Oakland’s cultural markets, located on the ground floor of Block’s downtown Oakland offices at 1955 Broadway. CJ talked to us from New Orleans (where she was attending a conference) about the Rise East Plan and commitment for East Oakland, her role with the BCZ, her vision for the Uptown Market, and more.
BLOCK: What is the Black Cultural Zone? What’s the mission of the organization?
CJ: The Black Cultural Zone is actually three things. It’s a geographic area from High Street in Oakland to the border of the cities of San Leandro and Oakland, from the hills to the water. It's a community development corporation, and it's a collaboration of organizations that support the vision of the Black Cultural Zone. And so what that vision is, in Oakland, is for our legacy Black community to remain, return, and rise in a thriving area that honors, elevates, and protects our legacy and future in the town we love.
I was born and raised in Oakland. In the late seventies, Oakland's population was 51 percent African-American, due primarily to redlining. Then the crack epidemic hit, predatory lending and subsequent foreclosures, and recently, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. All kinds of things have led to our community being less than 20 percent [of the Oakland population] and projected to be less than 10 percent by 2040.
And so we said, “We need a Black Cultural Zone to anchor our presence in Oakland." That's how it got started. [We] really focused on commercial corridors, thinking that if you have business here and jobs here, people can afford to stay. And so I joined in 2019 with my real estate development background. What we envision is that there will be a Black cultural area in this legacy city that will keep the memory of Black people, and hopefully retain and return a strong presence of Black people in this legacy area of East Oakland. Our vision doesn’t exclude other cultural groups, which, if you know Oakland, we love our cultural diversity. We just want to make sure we shall remain.
There are cultural zones all over this country that celebrate and elevate ethnic communities like Little Italy, Chinatown — people are used to that. But there has not been a safe, protected, and thriving Black Cultural Zone that celebrates our culture similarly in America. The history of African-Americans, it's different. We don't have the traditional immigrant story.
BLOCK: What is a typical day for you as CEO of the Black Cultural Zone?
CJ: On the move! After the BCZ was founded, it grew from three people to nearly 40 people. Now I spend more of my time looking outwards and building alliances, bringing in funding, and supporting our stakeholders, and also tend to the team that manages our programs.
BLOCK: Tell me about Uptown Market and how that collaboration with Block came to be.
CJ: Block has supported our economic development work. Again, I realized that we can't just build a marketplace without a pipeline of entrepreneurs; we have to incubate entrepreneurs who are able to sustain an actual brick-and-mortar presence. So, we started something called the AKOMA Market during the pandemic. We expanded that to taking those vendors on the road to festivals around Oakland.
So we'd been talking about a hub. [Block] asked if we'd be interested in using that space at Uptown Station to incubate and bring the best of Oakland cultural market vendors to that space. And it was like, absolutely! It gives our vendors an opportunity to see what it's like to have to get in at seven, and close at seven. [Editor’s note: Uptown Market’s holiday hours are Wednesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.]
BLOCK: What’s the response been since Uptown Market opened?
CJ: From customers, they're always amazed when they come in. It's such a beautiful space. It's so colorful and lively and we have a mix of retail and food, which gives people a reason to come. And we have events. So it's an experience. You’ve got to get people out of the house after the pandemic. It's a different world. The sellers are excited to be there.
BLOCK: As an East Oakland native, talk to me about the impact you've seen your work have?
CJ: I think the best way I can describe it is believing. The site in East Oakland called Liberation Park used to be a part of a thriving mall complex when I was younger, which ultimately became a police station. And then they abandoned it and it was overrun with weeds. And now we have created an oasis. And I think when people would hear me say, “We're going to have this roller-skating rink and outdoor movies at this abandoned site which was an eyesore,” they'd be like, “She is out of her mind.” And now it's there.
“The one thing I love to hear is that now our community members come to us with all kinds of ideas because they actually believe anything is possible.”
I think what's happened since the eighties is that absolute hope has been replaced with despair, and it was hard to believe that we could remain and thrive here. But now we can say, well, anything is possible. And believing in our ability to create what our vision of the future is, I think, is the most important thing.
BLOCK: What's your vision for the future of Uptown Market?
CJ: The vision is that we'll have a true representation of the diversity of vendors throughout Oakland. And that it will be a place where folks can innovate, they can test products, and they can grow their online marketplace.