Merritt College is a public community college in Oakland, California. Merritt, like the other three campuses of the

Peralta Community College District The Peralta Community College District is the community college district serving northern Alameda County, California. The district operates four community colleges: Berkeley City College, Laney College and Merritt College in Oakland, and Coll ...

, is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. The college enrolls approximately 6,000 students.

History

Merritt College (named for physician Dr.

Samuel Merritt Dr Samuel Merritt (1822–1890) was a physician and the 13th mayor of Oakland, California, from 1867–1869. He was a founding Regent of the University of California, 1868-1874. He was also a shipmaster and a very successful businessman; he die ...

) was opened as a general campus in 1954. Merritt College was originally located on Grove Street in North Oakland but later moved to Campus Drive in the hills of East Oakland.

Grove Street

The original Merritt College was located at what is now 5714 Martin Luther King Jr. Way (then called Grove Street) in the flatlands of North Oakland. In 1923, the campus of University High School was built for children of faculty of the University of California in Berkeley. The campus closed during World War II, but was reopened as the Merritt School of Business in 1946. In 1954, the

Oakland Unified School District Oakland Unified School District is a public education school district that operates a total of 80 elementary schools (TK–5), middle schools (6–8), and high schools (9–12). There are also 28 district-authorized charter schools in Oaklan ...

, then operating the Merritt campus and the Laney Trade and Technical School, formed Oakland Junior College (later renamed Oakland City College). In 1960, the same year as the opening of Skyline High School, OUSD decided to relocate Merritt College from Grove Street to the hills of East Oakland. Although the demographics of North Oakland changed throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until the mid-to-late-1960s that the student and faculty population began to change. After the 1960 California Master Plan for Public Higher Education, more Black students began to attend Merritt. In the early 1960s, the

Afro-American Association The Afro-American Association (AAA) was an influential organization founded in 1962 that started as a study group teaching African history, African and African-American history, African American history, later hosting speakers, meetings, forums, and ...

began recruiting Merritt students. By 1964, students formed the Soul Students Advisory Council, predecessors to the Black Student Union (BSU). Merritt Community College was the meeting place for prominent leaders of the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The two met in September 1962 and shortly after began organizing the Black Panther Party. There were many public displays of unrest on the campus during this time, speaking to the Cuban blockade, the black experience, and other political topics. The two leaders also attended many politically charged classes at the school such as experimental sociology, Black History, and Negro History. This occurred in September 1966 and started as Huey and Bobby brainstorming a ten-point platform. As the two grew closer, they first became involved in local organizations in Oakland only to eventually create their own. Against numerous protests by students and community members, Merritt was relocated from Grove Street to the hills of East Oakland in 1971. Merritt was renamed North Peralta Community College but was commonly known as Grove Street College. In 1975, a judge ordered the physical plant closed for seismic issues. The Grove Street campus was used as the primary filming location for the 1987 film, " The Principal." This site, now rehabilitated and serving as the north campus of the Children's Hospital and Research Center Oakland, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Campus Drive

Aerial view of Merritt College, October 2020

The present campus was opened in 1971. Funding came primarily as a result of a 1965 bond issue which also established a new downtown Oakland ("Civic Center") campus building for Laney College and the founding of the College of Alameda.

Occupational programs

Merritt College's occupational programs include nursing and health professions, community social services/substance abuse counseling, environmental management and technology, cybersecurity, computer information systems, landscape horticulture and environmental management, paralegal studies, real estate and restoration technology. A one-year Microscopy Certificate is also offered.

Notable alumni

Oakland City College, Merritt campus

* Richard Aoki,

official and civil rights activist * Saundra Brown Armstrong, district judge * Chauncey Bailey, journalist * Wendell Hayes, National Football League player * Elbert Howard, Black Panther Party co-founder * Judy Juanita, poet, novelist and playwright *

MacArthur Lane MacArthur Lane (March 16, 1942 – May 4, 2019) was an American professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL) for eleven seasons, from 1968 to 1978 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, and K ...

, National Football League player * Ted Lange, actor * Joe Morgan, Major League Baseball player *

Gerald Nachman Gerald Weil Nachman (January 13, 1938 – April 14, 2018) was an American journalist and author from San Francisco. Biography Nachman was born January 13, 1938, to Leonard Calvert Nachman, a salesman and actor in the Little Theater movement, ...

, journalist *

Huey P. Newton Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African-American revolutionary, notable as founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966. Under Newton's leadershi ...

, Black Panther Party co-founder * Patricia Rodriguez, artist *

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...

, jazz musician * Bobby Seale, Black Panther Party co-founder * Ron Silliman, poet *

Marvin X Marvin X (born Marvin Ellis Jackmon; May 29, 1944) is a poet, playwright and essayist. Born in Fowler, California, he has taken the Muslim name El Muhajir ("the expatriate" in Arabic) . His work has been associated with the Black Arts/Black ...

, poet and playwright *

René Yañez René Yañez (19 September 1942 – 29 May 2018) was a Mexican-American painter, assemblage artist, performance artist, curator and community activist located in San Francisco, California. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of San Franc ...

, artist and community activist

Merritt College

* John Bailey, actor *

Glenn Burke Glenn Lawrence Burke (November 16, 1952 – May 30, 1995) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979. He was the first MLB player to come out as gay, announcing it in 1982 after ...

, Major League Baseball player * Percy Robert Miller (Master P), rapper, record producer, actor

References

External links

Official website

{{authority control Education in Oakland, California California Community Colleges Universities and colleges in Alameda County, California Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Educational institutions established in 1954 1954 establishments in California Modernist architecture in California