Marlay’ja Hackett isn’t just handing out perfect 10s—not without letting a classmate and friend know how she feels about some of his rap lyrics, noting specific words that bother her.
The Fremont High School senior even pulls out her phone for audio reference. As a member of Youth vs. Apocalypse, Hackett has stood up to fossil fuel companies. She won’t shy away from giving her friend constructive criticism.
For now, she gives her Fremont High classmate’s rapping ability an 8.5 rating.
Hackett learned at an early age to speak up for herself. After her sophomore year, the environmental justice advocate was to speak in support of a senate bill to divest state pensions from fossil fuel companies. A day before Senate Bill 1173 was supposed to be considered by an Assembly committee, it was removed from the agenda, effectively killing the legislation. Hackett instead spoke outside of the Capitol, warning that “if we continue to output fossil fuels at the rate we currently are and with no regulations, the world as we know it and love will become unrecognizable.”
Deborian Ramsey, also a Fremont High senior, takes Hackett’s criticism to heart. But he knows his music isn’t a finished product. His teachers at Fremont High’s innovative Media Academy, Leon Sykes and Jasmene Miranda, have helped focus his lyrics.
“Rap and hip hop have been my whole life,” says Ramsey, the son of a rapper, who began writing music at age 6 and rapping at 14 to vent frustration.
“I was angry a lot,” he said. “Music helped with that, just by writing and putting my emotions on paper. My lyrics got better over time. I got more poetic and learned more rhyming.”
Bobby Young was an aspiring artist himself in 1973.
The music and fashion trends in East Oakland were different back then. Bobby played guitar in a funk band, a self-described “Black hippie” who earned “Best Afro” in the Fremont yearbook.
Classmate Shirley Everett-Dicko was the head song girl and after school worked the register and made potato salad at Jenkins Original Barbeque on 7th Street. On Memorial Day Weekend 1973, Shirley and her sisters helped their mother open Everett & Jones BBQ on 92nd Avenue and East 14th Street.
Last week, Young and Everett-Dicko joined other members of the Class of 1973 at the Fremont High gym to launch a 50th class reunion scholarship they hope fuels the dreams of seniors for decades to come. Hackett and Ramsey received $3,000 scholarships. Twins Ezra and Melisa Rodriguez, Chaipou Saetern, and Allen Ubungen received $1,000 scholarships.
“We wanted to party with a purpose,” Everett-Dicko said about the class’ 50th reunion, held at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle in downtown last September. The party raised $10,000 through ticket, photo book and popcorn sales, a raffle, and a donation from Beta Pi Sigma sorority’s Beta chapter. An alumni committee was created to pass the fundraiser to each 50th reunion class.
“What you need to succeed, you already have,” Joan Richardson-Johnson, the 1973 Fremont class president, told the 2024 seniors before revealing the six scholarship winners. “It’s within you. Know that and keep that, and don’t let anyone say you can’t, because you can.”
50 years of memories at Fremont High
Creativity and activism have long coursed through the hallways of Fremont High, even as the campus aesthetics have changed. A 2012 ballot measure pumped about $133 million into facilities.
The lawn where Michelle “Cookie” Brown and her 1973 classmates used to watch lowriders roll down Foothill Boulevard has given way to new buildings. The “dirt and sawdust” athletic field that was unfit for Young and his teammates to play home football games has been renovated with a synthetic turf field, digital video board and press box. The dimly lit, second-floor gymnasium where Everett-Dicko led school fight songs during basketball games has been razed for a state-of-the-art facility that now hosts Oakland Section championship games.
During last week’s scholarship ceremony, as Everett-Dicko snapped photos of the tiger mural overlooking the new gym, Young harkened to the early ‘70s, when his mother kept a bag packed in case he was drafted into the Vietnam War. “They were planning on sending me to Canada,” he said.
The classmates recall the night a brawl broke out during a basketball game against East Oakland rival Castlemont High. When Bobby’s mother rode the 38 bus past campus on her way home from work, police had arrived and a crowd had formed in front of the school. By that time, Bobby had made it home to watch the madness on the nightly news.
“You remember that, Shirley?” he called across the gym.
“I didn’t hang out with you bad kids,” Shirley replied.
“It was a basketball game, Shirley!”
St. John’s Church on 55th Avenue was popular for weekend dances. “Everyone had a curfew,” explained “Cookie” Brown, who would gossip about boys and make weekend plans on the front lawn. “We’d go out on Fridays but couldn’t go out on Saturday because we missed curfew.”
Brown remembers performing in a campus rendition of the musical “Guys and Dolls,” hanging at the Green and Gold Cafe across Foothill Boulevard from campus, and taking summer classes in order to graduate early. “I couldn’t wait to get out,” she said. Brown then studied business at Laney College and Cal State Hayward before a career in real estate and construction management.
Tanya Little had arrived in East Oakland from a rural area of south Sacramento. She felt like an outsider at Fremont High but gained confidence on the track team. Little ran the third leg on the 4×100 relay team but excelled in the 400 meters because “it took a while to get those legs moving.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something,” Little told the 2024 seniors, who last week also traveled to Universal Studios for their senior class trip before graduating.
Little tutored classmates during her senior year and graduated early. She worked in the food department at Montgomery Ward on East 14th, but was fired for stealing. “False!” she explained. “They found out it was the security guard.” Little was offered her job back but by then the teenager had found a new gig. She began as a seasonal DMV employee in 1975 and eventually became manager of the Claremont office in Oakland. Little went to college at age 50 and was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to advocate for small businesses seeking state contracts.
“Don’t give up,” she told the students.
A school with buzz, and a history of student activism
Fremont has seen a spike in enrollment in recent years and now has around 1,200 students. In March, the Media Academy was honored as a Distinguished California Partnership Academy.
“Students are knocking down the door to get in,” says Jaliza Collins, a 2006 Fremont graduate who is now a college and career readiness specialist. After the scholarship ceremony, Collins organized a senior trip sign-up sheet and handed out graduation gowns and cords. “It feels amazing, because at one point we were the school nobody wanted to attend.”
Ezra and Melisa didn’t have much of a choice.
Their mother works at Fremont. Their older brother attended the East Oakland campus, as well. The twins have been separated in school only once, in the fourth grade. But this fall, Ezra will attend UC Berkeley while Melisa heads to UCLA. “We’ve been sharing the same room our whole lives,” Melisa said, ”so being six hours away will be different.”
The twins advocated for clean bathrooms on campus through an Oakland Kids First leadership program. As vice president of the Queer Student Association, Ezra organized a transgender community day across the district. The siblings supported pro-Palestine protests last fall, and have spoken with middle school students about coping with violence in their communities.
“Growing up in Oakland, I have experienced gun violence,” Ezra says. “My family members have been lost to it.” Teens On Target, a violence prevention program, allowed Ezra to “give kids the chance to express what they’re feeling. That it’s OK if you feel unsafe. That’s normal.”
Two days after the Fremont scholarship ceremony, a shooting at Skyline High School’s graduation left three injured. Activism and violence is nothing new at Oakland schools.
In March of 1973, students from Fremont, Oakland High, and Oakland Tech boycotted their schools in protest of what a spokesperson called “mental and physical violence” toward Chicano students, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Hundreds of students took part in negotiations with superintendent Marcus Foster that resulted in a promise to expand bilingual and bicultural programs.
Also in 1973, a 17-year-old Black girl was stabbed to death by two Asian-American students in the Oakland Tech cafeteria, sparking racial tension throughout the district, according to the Chronicle. Young recalled classmates getting wind of a group of Tech students coming to campus “looking for someone” to fight. “The entire student body was on the front lawn when those kids pulled up in the car. They saw everyone out front and they left.”
In November of 1973, Foster, the district’s first Black superintendent, was shot dead after a school board meeting by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent leftist political organization that would go on to kidnap newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Foster had advocated for student identification cards to keep gang members and drug dealers off district campuses. The Symbionese Liberation Army called the student identification measures “fascist.”
“It was difficult, but we made it through,” Richardson-Johnson said of her high school years. “We looked beyond our surroundings and made friendships for life, and made it through. Was there crime? Yes. Were there people who didn’t believe in you? Yes there were. A lot of the class members were successful. And we’re here to give back so they know they can do it too.
“I am inspired.”
A bold and “expressive” senior class
Richardson-Johnson worked with Collins to collect scholarship submissions from this year’s graduating seniors. When Hackett and Ramsey heard their names called, classmates erupted in celebration.
“They are a very expressive group,” Assistant Principal Derek Boyd said of the senior class. “When they are excited about something, they let us know; when something bothers them, they let us know. If they want to see something happen, they are going to activate themselves to do it. I think they enjoy school, they enjoy each other, and they appreciate what we have been able to bring back to them post-pandemic.”
Hackett’s favorite memory is a 1990s-themed dance with the Black Student Union. She had no idea how to dress. “I was looking at what TLC wore,” she admits. Ramsey credits an internship in restorative justice with adding depth to his rap lyrics, something Hackett can appreciate.
“Ever since I was growing up, I felt I was able to speak my mind and set clear morals and boundaries for myself,” says Hackett, who will study criminal justice at UC Merced. “And being able to have a community surrounding me that was supportive of it helped so much more.”
Ramsey will study music production at Chico State. He hopes to transfer to Cal State Los Angeles.
“He kind of good,” graduating senior Kendal Erving said teasingly about “Debo,” who has showcased his skills at school dances and talent shows. “As much as I hate on him, he kind of good.”
