List of people from Oakland, California

This list includes people born in Oakland, California, or who lived in Oakland for a significant time.

Academics

George H. Hildebrand – industrial relations scholar at Cornell University
Gail Mahood – geology (born in Oakland)

Artists and designers

Athletes

Chefs

Nelson German – chef
Tanya Holland – chef, restaurateur, podcast host, and cookbook author
Nite Yun – chef and restaurateur

Entertainment

Leaders, activists, and politicians

Richard Aoki – activist
William P. Baker – politician
Sonny Barger – founder of the Hells Angels motorcycle club
Henry G. Blasdel – first governor of Nevada; resident of Oakland
Annie Florence Brown – President, Oakland Board of Education
Jerry Brown – politician, former governor of California and mayor of Oakland
Albert E. Carter – politician
Frank Chu – eccentric street protester
Eloise B. Cushing – lawyer; librarian of the Alameda County Law Library (47 years)
C. L. Dellums – organizer and leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Ron Dellums – politician, former U.S. Congressman and Representative, mayor of Oakland
Frank M. Dixon – politician, former governor of Alabama
Warren B. English – Confederate war veteran, politician, realtor
Lydia Flood Jackson – businesswoman, club woman, suffragist, an oldest living native of Oakland when she died in 1963
Marcus Foster – educator, first African-American Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District
Alicia Garza – co-founder of Black Lives Matter
Elihu Harris – politician, former mayor of Oakland
JuJu Harris – food-affordability activist
Kamala Harris – politician, former U.S. Senator (2017-2021), former attorney general of California (2021-2017) and former vice president of the United States (2021-2025); born at Kaiser hospital in Oakland but lived and attended school in Berkeley
Van Jones – founder, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Special Advisor for Green Jobs under US President Barack Obama
Joseph R. Knowland – former U.S. Representative and former owner of the Oakland Tribune, cremated in Oakland
William F. Knowland – former U.S. Senator
Fred Korematsu – Japanese-American who fought forced internment, testing the law in Korematsu v. United States
Barbara Lee – U.S. Representative
Charles Goodall Lee – dentist, civic leader, benefactor of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance
Clara Elizabeth Chan Lee – activist, first Chinese-American woman voter in the U.S.
Richard Lee – horticulturist, activist for the legalization of marijuana
Edwin Meese III – former U.S. Attorney General
Victor H. Metcalf – politician, attorney, banker
Jessica Mitford – writer, activist, former communist
Paul Montauk – Communist politician and two-time candidate for Oakland mayor
Ethel Moore – civic, education, and national defense work leader
Anca Mosoiu – technology activist
Nancy Nadel – member of the Oakland City Council
Huey P. Newton – activist, co-founder of the Black Panther Party
Andrew Nisbet Jr. – member of the Washington House of Representatives and United States Army officer
Washington J. Oglesby – one of the earliest Black lawyers in Alameda County
Pat Parker – Black lesbian poet and activist
Ed Rosenthal – horticulturist, publisher, activist for the legalization of marijuana
Byron Rumford – pharmacist
John A. Russo – Oakland city attorney, former city councilman
Bobby Seale – activist, co-founder of the Black Panther Party
Nicole Shanahan – attorney and running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential campaign
Hettie B. Tilghman – African-American activist and suffragist
Robert Treuhaft – activist for labor and leftist causes, attorney, writer
Earl Warren – Assistant Attorney City of Oakland, District Attorney of Alameda County, Attorney General of California, Governor of California and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
Charles Stetson Wheeler – attorney, Regent of the University of California
Lionel J. Wilson – politician, first African-American mayor of Oakland
Mother Wright – anti-hunger activist

Military

Bud Anderson – USAF (served 1942–1972) fighter pilot and commander, triple ace who retired at the rank of colonel
Jeremiah C. Sullivan – Civil War general in the Union Army and staff member of Ulysses S. Grant, buried in Oakland

Musicians, composers and dancers

Physicians

Samuel Merritt – physician, practiced in San Francisco, namesake of Merritt College, Merritt Hospital, and Lake Merritt, buried in Oakland
Virginia Prentiss – nanny to Jack London, midwife and former slave

Religious leaders

David A. Bednar – LDS apostle, born in Oakland
David Berg – controversial cult leader, founder of Children of God
Yusuf Bey – controversial Black Muslim activist
Mose Durst – author, educator, former president of the Unification Church
James Ishmael Ford – Zen Buddhist priest and Unitarian Universalist minister
Ray Frank – Jewish leader
Jack Hayford – minister, chancellor, songwriter
Judah Leon Magnes – prominent Reform rabbi, first president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Carol Anne O'Marie – Roman Catholic nun, mystery fiction writer
Bebe Patten – evangelist and founder of Patten University
Clarence Richard Silva – Catholic bishop from Oakland, current bishop of Honolulu
Richard B. Stamps – anthropologist, archeologist, president of the Taipei Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Allen Henry Vigneron – Catholic bishop, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland

Scientists and inventors

Dean Burk – medical researcher
Fernando J. Corbató – computer scientist
Frederick Cottrell – inventor
Frank Epperson – popsicle inventor
Lloyd N. Ferguson – first African American to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley
Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat – biochemist and virologist; died in Oakland
Ansel Franklin Hall – first park naturalist for Yosemite National Park, first Chief Forester for the National Park Service
Richard F. Johnston – ornithologist, academic and author
Stanley Miller – chemist
Sten Odenwald – astronomer and author
Wendell Phillips – archaeologist and oil magnate
William Shurtleff – researcher, technical writer, bibliographer, historian, and popularizer of soy foods
Lydia Weld – first woman to get a degree in engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and naval architect in World War II

Writers and poets

Daniel Alarcón – writer, currently resides in Oakland
Catherine Asaro – writer
Chauncey Bailey – journalist assassinated by an agent of Your Black Muslim Bakery
Delilah L. Beasley – first African-American columnist to be published in a major newspaper
Anthony Boucher – writer
Garrett Caples – poet, writer
Jon Carroll – columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle
Frank Chin – writer
Daniel Clowes – comic book writer, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, currently resides in Oakland
Robert Duncan – poet
Sarah Webster Fabio – African-American writer, poet, educator; born in Nashville, lived in Oakland 1955–1979
Ben Fong-Torres – rock journalist
Maxine Hong Kingston – writer, currently resides in Oakland
Richard Lange – Los Angeles-based author, born in Oakland
Yiyun Li – writer, former creative writing instructor at Mills College
Jack London – writer, raised in Oakland, namesake of Jack London Square
Anthony Marra – writer
Rod McKuen – poet, composer, singer
Joaquin Miller – poet, lived in Oakland 1886–1913
Jessica Mitford – author
Leila Mottley – author and poet
Jess Mowry – writer
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau – author, speaker, and podcaster
Ishmael Reed – writer, currently resides in Oakland
Mary Roach – science writer, currently resides in Oakland
William Saroyan – dramatist, author, lived in Oakland 1913–1918
Jason Shiga – author, cartoonist, puzzle designer
Alex Steffen – writer, born in Oakland
Gertrude Stein – writer
Robert Louis Stevenson – writer
Tina Susman – journalist, Time senior editor, former national editor of BuzzFeed News
Amy Tan – writer, born in Oakland
Jack Vance – science fiction writer
Nellie Wong – poet and activist, born in Oakland
Shawn Wong – writer, English professor
Helen Zia – writer, journalist, and activist, currently resides in Oakland

Criminals

Felix Mitchell – notorious drug lord and gang leader of the 1970s and early 1980s
Hans Reiser – computer programmer, owner of Namesys, convicted of murdering his wife
Tommy Lynn Sells – murderer and suspected serial killer