The descendants of Sidney and Irene Dearing have now filed a lawsuit in Alameda County seeking damages from the City of Piedmont over an egregious, century-old act of racial injustice.

The story of Sidney and Irene Dearing, who were harassed and intimidated — including by an angry mob led by a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated police chief — after purchasing a house in the all-white town of Piedmont, was brought to greater public attention six years ago. And since then, the City of Piedmont has sought to recognize this dark chapter, funding the design and installation of a small sculpture garden on the property the Dearings were ultimately forced to sell, under duress from the city, in 1924.

That commemorative project was still in the concept phase last June, and the city suggested it would be completed by the middle of this year.

But that gesture doesn't go far enough to repair the wrong that was done, and the generational wealth that was lost because of it, according the Dearings' descendants. As KTVU reports, with the help of the Legal Defense Fund, the nation's first civil rights law firm, they have filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court.

The suit seeks damages to compensate for the long-term value of the lost property, as well as an official apology from the city, and "other remedies tied to the loss of generational wealth, educational access and other benefits associated with homeownership in Piedmont."

Piedmont has always been an affluent city surrounded on all sides by Oakland, and it was incorporated as a redlined, whites-only city in 1907, with most of its development occurring in the 1920s and 30s.

Sidney Dearing, the owner of a successful Oakland restaurant, the Creole Cafe, decided in 1924 to purchase a new home that sat at 67 Wildwood Avenue in Piedmont. He would not have been able to execute the transaction himself, as a Black man originally from Texas, descended from Native Seminoles. But he and his mixed-race wife Irene were able to buy the home with the help of Irene's white mother, serving as proxy buyer.

The home was purchased in January 1924 for $10,000. And on May 6, 1924, after catching wind of a Black family moving in, a mob of around 500 Piedmont residents — including open Ku Klux Klan member Burton Becker, Piedmont's police chief at the time — showed up outside the home, demanding the Dearings give up the house and leave.

The city then, allegedly, concocted a workaround to push the Dearings out, telling a court that the land the house sat on was needed to build a new road, and that it had to be taken by eminent domain. In the meantime, the lawsuit says, the family was harassed with cross burnings, threats of lynching, and even attempted bombings.

"The city never intended to build the road," says Leah Aden, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, in a statement to KTVU. "We know based upon the factual record that they put the home up for sale and sold it to a white person a mere few months after the condemnation action was settled, which to us is an indication that they were not intending to build or complete a road, but that the city lied to the Dearings because they did not want a Black family to live in the city of Piedmont."

This historic website, set up by Piedmont native and librarian Meghan Bennett in 2020, documents the significant local news coverage of Dearings' case, and of the incident with the angry mob.

Sidney Dearing tried to get the City of Piedmont to compensate him with $25,000 for the house, but records show they ultimately settled for $10,000, the exact price he had paid. A Chronicle article from the time reported that the city had offered him $8,000, and Dearing had said, "I paid more than that for the house. I wIll sell the place, if they demand it, but they will pay the price that pleases me."

100 years later, Piedmont remains a city that is only 0.8% Black. The city has not yet responded to the lawsuit.