The Cypress Village housing projects are a series of housing complexes stretching from 10th Street to 14th Street and Kirkham Way. Cypress is located in between the Acorn neighborhood and Lower Bottoms neighborhood in West Oakland

West Oakland, Oakland, California

West Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California along the waterfront near the Port of Oakland and San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge. It lies at an elevation of 13 feet .-History:...

. Cypress Village is one of the three housing projects in West Oakland, along with the Campbell Village Court

Campbell Village Court, Oakland, California

The Campbell Village Court housing projects are a series of complexes located in the Campbell Village part of the Lower Bottoms area of West Oakland California. Campbell Village Court is bound by Willow Street to the west, Campbell Street to the east, 10th street to the north, and 8th street to the...

 and the Acorn Projects.

Cypress Village was built by the Oakland Housing Authority

Oakland Housing Authority

The Oakland Housing Authority is the public housing agency for the city of Oakland, California.Its mission statement states that it will "assure the availability of quality housing for low-income persons and promote the civic involvement and economic self-sufficiency of residents and further the...

 after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when many African-Americans began to migrate to Oakland. It was one of four all-black segregated

Racial segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

 projects built at the time. After the Cypress Freeway was built in 1954-1957 immediately in front of the project, most whites and middle-class blacks left the neighborhood to avoid the noise and pollution. By the 1980s Cypress Village was a "drug supermarket" where Huey P. Newton

Huey P. Newton

Huey Percy Newton was an American political and urban activist who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.-Early life:...

 purchased drugs. The neighborhood suffered further disruption in 1989 when the freeway collapsed in the Loma Prieta earthquake

Loma Prieta earthquake

The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...

. However, at the city of Oakland's insistence, the State of California rebuilt the freeway to avoid the neighborhood and instead cleaned up contamination on its property and, fifteen years later, completed a boulevard

Boulevard

A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...

 on the site named the Mandela Parkway, with a landscaped park in the median. Cypress Village is the home of rapper J Stalin

J Stalin

Jovan Smith, better known by his stage name J. Stalin , is a rapper from the Cypress Village housing projects in West Oakland. In 2007, he signed to Zoo Entertainment Production Company run by artist Mekanix, who described his style as a variant of Hyphy known as "Go"...

of the Livewire record label.