About Oakland Rising
Our Mission:
Oakland Rising educates and mobilizes voters in the flatlands to speak up for and take charge of the issues impacting our lives. We are a multilingual, multiracial collaborative with deep roots in East and West Oakland's neighborhoods, proving that everyday residents working together have the power to change the way our city is run. With longtime Oakland families and our newest neighbors working shoulder to shoulder, we are building on Oakland’s incredibly rich history to advance smart, community-first solutions for a thriving Town.
Our current work focuses on three major goals through which we are developing critical and key pieces of infrastructure necessary to build progressive power in Oakland:
- Build a permanent political/electoral infrastructure;
- Exercise and expand political influence; and
- Align organizations and coordinate with other progressive forces.
Our Vision:
We envision an Oakland that realizes our shared dreams of health, happiness, safety and opportunity for all. A Town that stands for progress and sustainability, that models what is possible in American cities of the 21st century. We believe we can erase the racial, economic, political, environmental and educational inequities that have created barriers between us, and find collective strength in our city’s diversity. We know that Oakland can reach its full potential when residents of any neighborhood, students of any school, riders of any bus can help lead our city into the future. We believe that this vision is possible, and that we will achieve it one vote, one meeting, one march at a time.
History: A Project From the Heart for the Progress of Our People
Oakland Rising emerged in 2006 out of the vision of several social justice Executive Directors of color. They recognized that, we, the progressive community in Oakland, are at a crossroads. For years, we have been locked out of City Hall – the efforts of base building organizations and advocates have been reduced to actions and demonstrations in the City Center, 2 minute testimonies at city council hearings, delegation meetings seen by elected officials as obligatory rather than opportunities to co-strategize. With one fight after the other, community members, leaders, and advocates show up in the hundreds at city hall, only to find out that deals have been cut months and weeks before on key issues that impact their families, neighborhoods and communities.
It was clear to them that in order to advance a social justice policy agenda, the social justice community needed on-going electoral infrastructure to garner the attention and respect of elected officials and build the support and participation of low-income communities of color to win at the ballot box. There needed to be an element of electoral organizing in order to shift political power and ensure lasting victories in our city's government. While many social justice organizations have sophisticated electoral organizing programs and experience, the lack of coordination and long-term collective vision has often led to last-minute collaboration on tactical electoral campaigns that didn’t reach a scale of significance.
These Executive Directors envisioned an alliance of organizations collectively working on electoral organizing, aligning their organizational work through on-going civic participation and strengthening Oakland’s social justice movement by working towards a broader vision of a better Oakland. The founders believed that Oakland needed a place-based, long-term political strategy and organization to unite and energize the base-building organizations’ membership and policy/advocacy organizational networks and lead the movement to political victory.
Oakland Rising was born in 2006 as a collaborative of social justice organizations charged with carrying out the missing elements of electoral organizing and organizational alignment that would ensure lasting victories for all people in our beloved city. The first Executive Director, Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont, was brought on to lead the collaborative in September 2008. Shortly after, in March 2009, the current Field Director, Jessamyn Sabbag, joined the team to complete this dynamic duo.
Partner Organizations
The Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) has gained recognition for its groundbreaking work to build a progressive base in the low-income Asian community.
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) is the premier community-labor institutional alliance in Oakland. They are acknowledged for their leadership in policy, research and organizing on economic justice issues.
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights through their Green Collar Jobs, Soul of the City and Books Not Bars programs, is playing a leadership role in issues of developing a just green economy, violence prevention and alternatives to incarceration.
Causa Justa :: Just Cause (CJJC) is a membership-based organization working to build a powerful voice for Oakland's low-income tenants and workers.
Staff & Contact
Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont, Executive Director
Named after the Maxim Gorky poem, Esperanza is compelled to bring her inexhaustible hope, organizing experience and political passion to Oakland Rising. Since childhood Esperanza has been steeped in creating social change through organizing and activism. Her lifelong connection with Oakland’s progressive history, culture and political climate brings a special perspective to Oakland Rising.
Esperanza grew up in East Oakland where drug dealing and violence riddled the streets. Thanks to close guidance from her politically active parents, she remained grounded in the political struggle for freedom locally, nationally, and internationally. After graduating from Skyline High School, Esperanza received a BA in English Literature from Mills College.
In 2004, Esperanza took a position as a worksite organizer with the California state workers union, SEIU Local 1000. Assigned to the Downtown LA turf with nearly 2000 workers, Esperanza organized graveyard shift custodians to stand up for their contractual right to respect and dignity at Cal-Trans, which led to her first arrest. The arrest was followed by statewide actions by workers which resulted in the successful arbitration under the Unfair Labor Practice statute and unfettered union access.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Esperanza (whose maternal family has lived in New Orleans for over 200 years) and six other organizers decided that their skills were needed to help black and displaced survivors reclaim their lives, their homes and their city. Using a consensus-building model, The People’s Organizing Committee organized from the “bottom-up” by taking direction from the poorest, blackest and most oppressed people who demanded resources from the government. In addition to training new organizers, developing organizing plans, implementation strategies and volunteer orientation, Esperanza worked as the Administrative Director for POCC.
When the opportunity to use the community/labor organizing cadre-model to build capacity for Barack Obama in California arose, Esperanza was excited to participate in this experimental political organizing program. She was hired as the Regional Field Director for Northern California in October 2007. Growing up in Oakland, Esperanza believed that engaging low-income people of color in East and West Oakland would be the key to winning the 9th Congressional District (Oakland). Esperanza proudly trained and mentored 9 organizers, organized 73 teams, coordinated volunteers to make 51,000 phone calls in just one day, and won 3 of 10 Congressional districts for Barack Obama on February 5th - more than any other Regional Field Director in California.
During the Obama Campaign, Esperanza had the honor and privilege to be the campaign liaison for Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Shortly thereafter she was hired as the Political Director of Barbara Lee for Congress, where Esperanza was able to forward the progressive politics and vision of one of the nations most historic progressive political icons.
Esperanza’s work as the Executive Director advances her conviction that Oakland’s great potential will be realized with a progressive vision that empowers working families and people of color to see themselves as vehicles for change. Esperanza serves on the State Board of Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) as a Political Action Co-Chair, the 1st Vice President of BWOPA’s Oakland/Berkeley Chapter, Member-At-Large for National Women’s Political Caucus- Alameda North Chapter and is an elected 16th Assembly District Delegate to the California Democratic Party.
She was recently appointed to the Alameda County Human Relations Commission.
Jessamyn Sabbag, Field Director
A Bay Area native currently based in Oakland, Jessamyn has been active in progressive social change work for the last decade. She cut her teeth in organizing through high impact anti-police brutality work in her hometown. She is currently Field Director of Oakland Rising, an up and coming alliance of social justice organizations employing electoral strategies to move the issues and agendas of low-income communities of color to the center of city government. She started her electoral work in 2004 as the Civic Engagement Coordinator for the Marin Grassroots Leadership Network. Jessamyn brings leadership, passion and expertise in organizing and movement building from her previous position as the Director of GenVote, the electoral organizing component of the Generational Alliance, a national alliance of over 20 youth organizations. Before her position with GenVote, she was Director of Future5000.com - a national directory and networking website of over 700 progressive youth organizations. Jessamyn has served on the Statewide Coordinating Committee of the California Partnership and is currently on the California Alliance, working to update California's out-dated tax and fiscal policies.
