About
I am a father an entrepreneur a community Member
I’ve experienced the birth and growth of two generations in Oakland, totaling 25 years of evolving, unlearning, learning, creating, and contributing to the richness of Oakland’s community.
Before delving into my plans for revitalizing Oakland, let me introduce myself. I’m Babatunde Afolabi, also known as Baba. The name means “Father Return.” I was born following the passing of my paternal grandfather. In my culture, we embrace reincarnation, which is why this name was bestowed upon me. I am proud to be a descendant of both a farm merchant and a royal family from Yoruba land.
Early childhood
My father immigrated to the USA from Nigeria, a country in West Africa, where I was born and raised. At the time of his migration, I was barely 2 years old, my sister was 5 years old, and my mother was 5 months pregnant with my younger brother. At that time, the country was arguably the most promising in the world. While my father settled in Oakland in the early 80’s, my mother raised the three of us in one of the most notorious cities in Lagos: Mushin.
Mushin is a borough bustling with creative, intellectual, hardworking people, much like Oakland. And just as in Oakland, the people of Mushin proudly display and celebrate their community’s vibrant spirit, undeterred and even inspired by its challenges. The common ethos is uncanny: when I finally immigrated to Oakland from Mushin in the late 90’s, following my father’s nearly 20 year-old footsteps, I instantly identified with the familiar energy of Oakland. Somehow, inexplicably, I just knew I was home.
Education
After arriving in Oakland, I lived in Oak Village Apartments starting in 1999 and worked at the West Oakland US Post Office during business season. I attended Peralta Community College from 2000-2002. I graduated from California State University East Bay with a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice in 2005. Following that, I earned a master of business administration in Leadership Management from John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, in 2010.
Work Life
In my early years in Oakland, I had the good fortune to work for mom-and-pop small businesses across Oakland, Emeryville, and Fremont for a span of ten years. During that time, in 2003, I helped relocate my soccer team from San Francisco to Lowell Park in West Oakland after being pushed out by gentrification in the Silver Terrace neighborhood. The team eventually moved deeper into West Oakland and now plays at Raimondi Park. In 2014, we organized the African festival Umoja in that same park for six consecutive years, celebrating African multiculturalism with hundreds of vendors, music performances, and a soccer tournament, adding to the cultural fabric of West Oakland and bringing vitality to the neighborhood.
This experience eventually led me to a management position with a retail giant, where I led a team of over 50 staff members and managed annual revenues ranging from $2.4 million to $5.6 million. Finally, over a decade ago, I made the decision to leave the corporate world to pursue entrepreneurship full-time. Since then, I have successfully built three different companies, created over 80 jobs and mentored countless members of Oakland’s younger generation along the way.
Prior to leaving my job in 2013 to focus on entrepreneurship, I was part of a collective revitalizing downtown Oakland after the 2008 housing crisis, which caused many to lose their homes and jobs, resembling a modern Great Depression. This led to the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, with Occupy Oakland forming a significant tent city in front of City Hall. Inspired, a group of friends, mainly women, started “In the Black” to boost the local economy by promoting minority-owned businesses. After several months of hosting pop-ups in Old Oakland, I was invited to create a similar pop-up in the Cathedral Building at the Telegraph-Broadway junction.
Prior to leaving my job in 2013 to focus on entrepreneurship, I was part of a collective revitalizing downtown Oakland after the 2008 housing crisis, which caused many to lose their homes and jobs, resembling a modern Great Depression. This led to the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, with Occupy Oakland forming a significant tent city in front of City Hall. Inspired, a group of friends, mainly women, started “In the Black” to boost the local economy by promoting minority-owned businesses. After several months of hosting pop-ups in Old Oakland, I was invited to create a similar pop-up in the Cathedral Building at the Telegraph-Broadway junction.
Life in Oakland
After a couple of years, plans to update Latham Square combined with landlord troubles, forced us to relocate a few buildings down from the Cathedral. There, I began another pop-up and later signed a lease and operated my own store. During this period, we participated in First Friday shows with art installations and outdoor performances, often featuring OUSD students from Oakland School for the Arts. We also hosted monthly art installations and performances in the basement. However, after the Ghost Ship tragedy in 2016, our landlord advised us to stop hosting events in the basement, ending our prospects of curating shows the community has come to love and yarn for. We eventually turned the shop into a marketplace for local entrepreneurs to launch their clothing brands, which housed about four brands. Before the pandemic, the space transformed into a barbershop and snack shop.
A year before the pandemic, I initiated a project to bring a boutique sports bar to downtown Oakland, offering a unique aesthetic and cocktail program unlike any other sports bar in the area. However, delays, particularly from the City of Oakland’s building department backlog in 2018 and 2019, pushed the opening date beyond the original schedule. Despite these setbacks, we persevered and opened in August 2021, amid the pandemic. Unfortunately, frequent customer car break-ins and thefts led to a decline in sales, forcing us to close.
As a long-time Oaklander who has invested in, fostered and contributed to the fabric of what is Oakland today, I believe I owe it to myself, my family, and my community to be a solution in this difficult time. I am ready to be the next Oakland City Council Member for District 3. Let’s get to work!
A year before the pandemic, I initiated a project to bring a boutique sports bar to downtown Oakland, offering a unique aesthetic and cocktail program unlike any other sports bar in the area. However, delays, particularly from the City of Oakland’s building department backlog in 2018 and 2019, pushed the opening date beyond the original schedule. Despite these setbacks, we persevered and opened in August 2021, amid the pandemic. Unfortunately, frequent customer car break-ins and thefts led to a decline in sales, forcing us to close.
As a long-time Oaklander who has invested in, fostered and contributed to the fabric of what is Oakland today, I believe I owe it to myself, my family, and my community to be a solution in this difficult time. I am ready to be the next Oakland City Council Member for District 3. Let’s get to work!