""We didn't know what we were doing," Serrano says, reflecting on the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival. "We booked 11 acts on the main stage." Attempting to reach all demographics with "straight-ahead jazz, jazz with hip-hop, Asian jazz, Latin jazz" and more, Serrano says, they soon learned to book less performers. But their heart was in the right place, and San Antonio Park provided a perfect location for their mission."
"Formerly the site of bear and bull fights in the 1800s, San Antonio Park is located on the rolling hills of the 20s in East Oakland. At the time of the first jazz festival, organizers saw the surrounding community of Southeast Asian, Chicano, Indigenous, and African-American residents as a prime example of Third World solidarity. "But," says Serrano, "it was also one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland.""
Four grassroots collectives joined in the late 1990s, including Aerosol writers Mike "Dream" Francisco and the TDK crew, Favianna Rodriguez's C4 collective, the Black Dot's Marcel Diallo and Letitia Ntofon, and organizers from Taller sin Fronteras, to curate the first Malcolm X Jazz Festival in 2000. Influences included Amiri Baraka, Yuri Kochiyama, Malaquías Montoya and Malcolm X, and the festival embodied "the liberation of people from Third World," with art as the unifying force. Early festival planning overbooked performers across diverse jazz styles, prompting later refinements. San Antonio Park and a culturally diverse yet low-income community provided the setting for the Alliance. Once initial funding was secured, organizational development continued.
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