Sobrante Park, Oakland, California

Sobrante Park is located in East Oakland CA, separated from the rest of the city by railroad tracks and and industrial neighborhoods.^[1] It was built shortly after World War II, and was one of the first suburban-style working-class black neighborhoods in the city of Oakland.^[1]

In the 1980s the neighborhood became a center of crack cocaine dealing.^[1] A large gang from the neighborhood gave itself the nickname, "11-5" (or "11-500") which refers to the section of California State's legal code for drug crimes.^[1] A memorial to 32 men and six women members of the gang who have been killed since then (as of 2002) was painted on the basketball court in Carney Park, a local park named after a young man from the neighborhood who died in the Vietnam war.^[1]

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