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The longest continual member of Mount Zion, King has seen her church through eight locations and ten pastors, and witnessed the tides of change that have swept West Oakland. Today, Mount Zion stands at the corner of 12th and Willow Streets, a rambling, boxy stucco structure painted white with light blue window trim. The words on its sign outside are outlined in neon; some of the neon letters dangle toward the sidewalk. Two blocks away is the westernmost edge of residential Oakland, defined by the relocated and recently reopened Cypress Freeway. "We're in what we call part of the lower bottom," said Johnnie Lewis, who with her husband plays organ and piano at Mount Zion. Lewis runs an alcohol and drug treatment program in the neighborhood. "I began to see children coming to church who I found out later were raising themselves because their mothers were on drugs," Lewis said. The situation in West Oakland has not always been this way, according to members and to history books. Eight decades ago, when Mount Zion was founded, West Oakland was a racially integrated, working- and middle-class community. The Southern Pacific Railroad terminus sustained the neighborhood economically. Traffic from all over the East Bay passed down 7th Street, West Oakland's main artery, to reach San Francisco bound ferries. |
