Today is the birthday of Harold “Slim” Jenkins who was born on July 22, 1890, in Monroe, Louisiana, and moved to Oakland shortly after World War I,
where he found work as a waiter. He was a successful businessman,
owning and operating several West Oakland restaurants, liquor stores,
and night clubs which earned him the title of the "Mayor" of West
Oakland and whose Slim Jenkins Cafe was popular in that area from the
1930s to the 1960s.
Jenkins opened his club at 1748 - 7th Street in West Oakland on December 5, 1933, the day Prohibition was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment.
E. F. Joseph Photograph Collection
photo: African American Museum &
Library at Oakland
dare & photographer unknown
dare & photographer unknown
For
many years, it was the premiere nightclub in Oakland and called the
"Harlem of the West". From the thirties and into the
forties, the
Club featured many musicians including Bob Lewis (bass), Jimmy Buchanan
(sax), Earl Watkins (drums), Eric Miller (guitar), Commodore Lark
(bass) and Norvell Randall (piano).
photos: African American Museum and Library at Oakland
Buchanan, Watkins, Randall, Miller & Lark
date & photographer unknown
Miller, Lewis and Randall
date & photographer unknown
Miller, Lewis and Randall
date & photographer unknown
saxophone players
date & photographer unknown
In the fifties and sixties it featured black musical icons such as Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, the Ink Spots, Earl Hines, Louis Jordan, Linda Hopkins, Dinah Washington performing for the racially mixed middle class audience. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Slims, and William Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune, was a frequent customer at the supper club.
Harold “Slim” Jenkins was a charter member of the Port of Oakland Community Club, and a member of the Men of Tomorrow, the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP and the Boys Club of Oakland. He was also active in a number of social and civic organizations.
French photographer Michelle Vignes shot many of the musicians performing in the West Oakland night clubs in the sixties and published, The Blues (link below), a book of those and other amazing images of America, which was published by artist/photographer, Lon Clark, Jr. (link below).
The Seventh Street district was forever altered during the 1960s when the United States Postal Service
demolished twelve blocks of property to erect a new postal facility and
even more was destroyed in the 1970s, through eminent domain, with the arrival of BART, Oakland’s public transit system.
It is interesting that after destroying a whole way of life and culture; the directors of BART
renamed the West Oakland station, Oakland West (to make it sound more
aristocratic or high-toned, maybe?) This raised the hackles of Oakland
residents who protested the name, created a furor and the signs on the
station were changed back to West Oakland.
After the Slim Jenkins Cafe in West Oakland was razed in 1962, Jenkins opened Slim Jenkins Cafe
at 310 Broadway, also in Oakland, which he ran until his death in 1967.
Viewfinder links:
Michelle Vignes ~ The Blues
Net links:
African American Museum at Oakland ~ Collection
Black Past ~ Harold “Slim” Jenkins
Calisphire ~ Slim Jenkins Cafe patrons
Geoffreys Live ~ Slim Jenkins, Oakland Black Entrepreneur
Local News Matters ~ ‘Harlem of the West’
Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 22, 2021
