A Legendary Mural From the 1980s Has Been Repainted in East Oakland

When Del Phresh first painted the words “OAKLAND IS PROUD” on a wall in East Oakland in the mid-’80s, he was on a mission.

At the time, Oakland’s reputation was ravaged by the war on drugs, and all it entailed: the influx of crack cocaine, extremely high unemployment, over-policing, swollen jails and nightly news reports sensationalizing crime.

In order to set the record straight about his community, Phresh grabbed a few aerosol cans and ensured the world put some respect on the Town’s name by painting a giant mural along E. 12th Street, reading “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”

Four decades later, I meet with Phresh on the concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th Street, across from where the original piece was painted.

“At the time it was the early ’80s, and mid-’80s, and the city was full of crime and corruption, and poverty and prostitution and drugs,” he tells me. “And it had a negative reputation. So I thought, ‘I want to show the Bay Area — hell, the world — that regardless of that, we are proud of our city. We love Oakland.”

The “OAKLAND IS PROUD” mural became a symbol of the Town’s resolve, and its cultural relevancy extended to city marketing, album covers, tribute murals and even a nationally syndicated television show.

Phresh’s original piece was painted over long ago. But last weekend, here at the same exact location, he and a few friends remade it, painting “OAKLAND IS PROUD 2” in metallic silver and royal blue along E. 12th Street.

Given Oakland’s current issues, ranging from housing to violence, and the way people remain passionate about the Town despite its depiction in the media, Phresh’s piece is as relevant today as it was when he first painted it nearly 40 years ago.

From an East Oakland Wall to the World

After first painting a smaller, scrappy iteration of the mural on a wall of the historic St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, Phresh returned (this time with permission of the center’s Ray Castor) and spent the entire summer of 1987 completing “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”

When it was done, the multicolored, bubble-letter piece stretched the length of a full city block, and soon became a cultural landmark.

It was featured in the opening credits of Mark Curry’s television show Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, and provided a fresh background for the cover image of Capital Tax’s 1989 self-titled record.

In 2020, Phresh collaborated with Oaklandish to create merchandise using the logo, as well as a piece reading “OAKLAND IS STILL PROUD,” painted on the wooden boards covering the retail store during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

The mural’s legacy doesn’t stop there. It’s appeared on event flyers, and has been remixed within other prominent murals.

“They got a photo of it at the Oakland Airport,” Presh says, adding that he’s even seen it used in commercials promoting tourism to Oakland.

Repping his Home Turf

Well-recognized as a style king in his craft, Phresh made noise locally when he won a mural competition hosted by the KRON-TV show Home Turf in 1986. A year later, he stepped onto the international stage by appearing in Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff’s seminal 1987 book Spraycan Art.

Fitted in a customized jean jacket and hand-painted baseball hat embroidered with his given name, Joel, Phresh remembers his initial discovery of this spot on E. 12th.

“My first piece on this wall, I got arrested for it.” It was a style piece with bubble letters, he says, and it made waves. “Back in the day,” says Phresh, “you didn’t see graffiti out here.”

Others had scribbled on the walls and tagged their turfs, but it wasn’t stylized images and lettering — graf writing as we know it now.

Before the Town’s scene got popping, Phresh honed his skills by hitting up the surfaces of AC Transit’s 82 bus, tagging his first graf handle “GERM” as he rode through East Oakland.

It wasn’t until being arrested for painting the wall on E. 12th that he changed his name. Handcuffed and sitting in a patrol van, it hit him.

“Fresh. I like that, because that’s gonna be synonymous with with hip-hop forever,” he remembers thinking. “But I gotta be original.”

He added “Ph” in place of “F,” and “Bow!,” he exclaims, “that’s how I got my name, sitting in the back of the paddy wagon.”

Getting Active in Graffiti Crews

While Phresh treated the Town as his playground — he was the first to do a piece in the 23rd Yard of East Oakland — he really got his start by running around Berkeley and San Francisco.

A fly kid named Dizzy D, known for sporting Pumas and Adidas suits, was the first to take Phresh around the Bay, bombing walls. Soon after, Phresh got his first paid gig, painting at a store under the old Leopold’s Records near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.

“I was almost done,” says Phresh, reminiscing on his first paid job, “and this kid came in, and he’s like ‘I’m Kaos, I’m from TF.’”

The mention of the well-known TF, or Task Force crew, caused Phresh to freak out, but he played it cool. When he was invited to join the crew, he calmly obliged.

His work then started to spread all around the Bay, taking off after he met two kids who went by the names Style and West.

They arranged a meeting on that same concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th. One of the trio had the idea to form their own crew. They called it the “Bomb Squad.”

“We were bombing the shit out of the city,” says Phresh, noting that the crew’s acronym of “BSK” came together when they added the word “Kings” to their title.

“BSK was the first crew (in Oakland),” says Phresh, adding that other crews immediately popped up thereafter. “We had the fame, we had the notoriety, we had the stats.”

At the time, Mike “Dream” Francisco was just starting his crew TDK, formed with a collection of his close friends and cousins.

“But as the ’80s and ’90s went on,” recalls Phresh, “TDK out-clipped BSK by a long shot.” TDK, originally known as “Those Damn Kids,” grew to dozens of members. Still strong today, they’ve created some of the best-known murals and pieces in the Bay Area, and behind the scenes have contributed vastly to the culture.

Respect of His Peers

In the late ’90s, Presh and Mike “Dream” Francisco used to hang out and sketch together at Built to Last Tattoo in East Oakland. “Before Mike passed, one day I was in there and I was like, ‘Dream, would you allow me to write TDK?'”

Presh says the late graf legend looked at him and said, “Is you stupid, man? Of course you can.”

TDK’s Spie 1, a legendary graf writer in his own right, recalls going to East Oakland to see Phresh’s “OAKLAND IS PROUD” piece. He met Phresh around the same time while attending an event at Stanford University, when Spraycan Art co-author Henry Chalfant hosted a screening of the seminal graffiti documentary he co-produced for PBS, Style Wars.

“He’s done a lot for putting Oakland on the map,” says Spie, telling me about Phresh on a recent phone call. He describes his old friend as funny, personable, fun-loving and down to earth, calling him “the one who cares.”

The two were part of a wave of artists fighting to end South African apartheid, and also collaborated on a piece in Berkeley’s Revolution Books.

But, Spie says, you can’t overlook the impact of “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”

“The statement itself, it’s uplifting,” says Spie. “It totally gives an instillment of great pride to people in Oakland.”

As a huge piece of art visible from BART and located in the economically disenfranchised flatlands of East Oakland, the mural tacitly acknowledged the city’s struggles, Spie says, while speaking to the historic resilience of its residents.

A Lasting Influence

Since the late ’80s, Oakland has changed tenfold, as has the public perspective on graffiti. An art form once seen as a blight or public nuisance is now readily commissioned by developers and real estate agents.

Phresh is happy that a few of his friends from back in the day are making money off their craft, explaining that when they were kids, that was their goal. “We all was hoping to do that when we started,” he says. “Parlay this art into making money.”

When I ask if he himself has been properly compensated for his work, Phresh instantly replies, “Oh, hell no.”

As a BART train whizzes overhead, he clarifies that it’s not because he doesn’t understand his own worth. “With my art,” says Phresh, “I could charge three million for my stuff if I want to, based on my reputation.”

But he’d rather give people something they can afford.

“You gotta be sensible,” he says. “So, I always give my partners player prices for the work I do.” It doesn’t matter if it’s an auto body shop or a sign for a bakery, he says: “I could charge ’em more, and I know I’m worth more, but is that realistic?”

At 60, Phresh hasn’t stopped painting. He organized this gathering, and completed parts of the new mural, though he was largely assisted by painters from the community, including Dream’s son Akil and other members of TDK. Next summer, he and some of those same artists plan to hold an event titled The Kings of the East Bay.

Looking further ahead, to the future of the art form and the the next generation of graf writers, Phresh sounds slightly resigned as he says, “These new-school kids … I don’t really like a lot of the damage they do.”

Taking a breath of accountability, he adds, “But at the same time, I can’t blame ’em,” he says, “‘Cause I influenced them.”