Suit: Blacks in Oakland Robbed when Interstate was Built

• W. Oakland residents owed billions for land sold after earthquake, Reverend claims

The Rev. Henry C. Williams Sr. comes armed with a thick sheaf of maps and legal documents, and a bill marked due for $300 billion. Williams, 60, has sued the cities of Oakland and Emeryville, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the state, the governor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and a bevy of development, railroad and title companies. He claims that together they've conspired to cheat black Oakland residents out of money and economic opportunities due them from the rebuilding of Interstate 880 through West Oakland after the Cypress Freeway was felled by 1989's Loma Prieta earthquake. He filed his suit in October andamended it last month; a case management conference is scheduled for Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of San Francisco. The truck driver-turned-gadfly — who is working without an attorney on this matter as a "private attorney general," an individual suing on behalf of the public interest.  The lawsuit basically claims the land used to rebuild the freeway, as well as privately developed commercial tracts around it, are actually public trust land under a state law passed in 1911. [more]