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The Black Activist Trying to Save Oakland from ‘Phony’ Woke Progressives
The Black Activist Trying to Save Oakland from ‘Phony’ Woke Progressives
Seneca Scott at the Bottoms Up Community Garden in Oakland, which he runs. (Photos by Jason Henry for The Free Press)
Seneca Scott says his city and its leadership are broken. He has a plan to fix both.
By David Josef Volodzko
10.30.23 — U.S. Politics
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The Free Press
The Free Press
The Black Activist Trying to Save Oakland from ‘Phony’ Woke Progressives

Cardboard boxes of fresh yellow squash sit on a table outside the Bottoms Up Community Garden in Oakland, California.

Seneca Scott said “meet me at my office,” and this lush spot at the corner of 8th Street and Peralta—home to songbirds and clucking chickens—is it.

A few minutes later, Scott, 44, drives up in his Jeep and hops out wearing pajamas, a down …

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David Josef Volodzko

News editor and senior writer at FIRE, author of The Radicalist, words in New York Magazine, Foreign Policy, The Nation, The New Republic, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Slate and Vice.

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