Through grassroots organizing, base-building, and political education, Oakland Freedom Project serves a multiracial, multilingual base of informed and empowered residents who are ready to fight for the city they deserve. We believe real change starts with the people most impacted by systemic racism and disinvestment, unified by a bold vision of a city that centers the well-being of all, and working every day to build community power and transform Oakland from the flatlands up.
After the passage of Oakland’s Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax in 2016, we launched the Sugar Freedom Project in 2017 as a response to the targeting of Black, Brown, and low-income communities by the sugar industry and the broader systems that enable that harm. SFP organized hundreds of East Oakland residents to set and advocate for funding priorities for the tax revenues, but they faced confusing processes, lack of access, and little transparency around how the money was being used. SFP was built on a commitment to hold the city accountable and center the voices of those most impacted, so this setback led to a bigger, deeper project: Oakland Freedom Project.
In 2025, Oakland Freedom Project launched an ambitious house meeting campaign to share the lessons of the Sugar Freedom Project, demystify how city decisions are made, and how to to effectively intervene in the process to advocate for meaningful change. Residents huddled in living rooms, backyards, community centers, parks, and libraries to envision an Oakland that allows them and their neighbors to thrive. They want long-term, strategic investments in neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of redlining, pollution, the War on Drugs, and corporate development that ignore them. The Oakland Freedom Project proudly traces its lineage to the rich history of Oakland’s freedom struggles.
OFP Leadership Development
OFP organizers recruit by meeting people where they’re at – on public transit, at grocery stores and shopping centers, doorknocking in their neighborhoods – and build one-on-one relationships with each individual to support them as emerging leaders in our collective movement for equity. From here, we develop leadership through Organizer Training, Community Action Research, House Meetings, Teatro, and Political Education, with OFP members taking on key responsibilities to deepen ownership of organizing activities and strategy.
Through these activities, we base-build to develop grassroots leadership in the flats, deepening community engagement and cultivating strong relationships to build power and make sure everyone has a role in shaping the change we want to see in our city.
House Meetings
In grassroots organizing, house meetings are a tool to develop awareness on issues affecting a community, with the goal of building relationships, deepening commitment to participate and take action on the issues, and cultivating a collective identity around their shared experiences and desire for change.
This year, OFP members are leading a house meeting campaign to gather with friends, family, and neighbors to explore the issues in their neighborhoods and how they can organize to effectively intervene in city decision-making processes.
Teatro
Using theatre as a tool for organizing, OFP members on our Teatro track collaborate to tell stories, raise awareness, and inspire action around the issues facing our communities. Embodying our lived experiences through performance helps connect our shared histories and explore how we can approach organizing creatively, joyfully, and with our full selves.
Community Action Research
We use Community-Based Participatory Action Research to help develop policy priorities of the base. We train our community organizers and resident leaders to develop and conduct their own research tools, protocols, analysis, and action steps. Since OFP’s formation in 2017, we have engaged with over 3000 residents across Oakland’s flatlands to ensure that the communities historically excluded from shaping public systems are leading in naming the problems, advancing the solutions, and transforming the systems that have neglected them.
Organizer Training
Our leaders participate in Spadework as one of our leadership development paths that strengthens their organizing while keeping them rooted in their communities. Our organizers go through intensive, hands-on base-building training — recruitment, leadership development, deep community engagement — to develop foundational organizing skills and strategies. OFP resident organizers apply their training to create political education spaces, lead community-based participatory research, and design activities that grow leadership from within their own base.
Political Education
In response to challenges navigating City Hall to advocate for structural investment in their neighborhoods, OFP’s core leaders and committee members helped develop a political education workshop curriculum for community members living in the flats. OFP organizers train and support our core members to facilitate and design the workshops, building leadership and broadening our communities’ understanding of how to take collective action to advance justice for their neighborhoods.