Oakland Although there were night clubs in Oakland before World War II—Slim Jenkins’s Place on Seventh Street opened its doors in 1933—they mainly presented jazz and nothing is known of any local blues talent before the forties. The employment needs of local defense factories, especially the shipyards, led to a huge influx of blacks into the Bay Area (mainly from Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana). The black population of Oakland rose from 8,462 in 1940 to 37,327 in 1945 and it has continued to…