Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and renowned performer Linda Tillery will be among the award recipients at this year’s Honoring LGBTQ+ Bay Area Black Women Leaders & Allies. The event will be held at The White Horse Inn in Oakland on February 26.
Mayor Barbara Lee
Barbara Lee was elected the 52nd Mayor of Oakland in a historic special election held on April 15, 2025, becoming the first Black woman to lead the city. Mayor Lee brings a wealth of public service experience and deep roots in the community to Oakland City Hall. From overcoming personal adversity—raising two sons as a single mother on public assistance, while earning degrees from Mills College and UC Berkeley, to becoming an award-winning leader—she combines personal tenacity with unwavering dedication to Oakland.
Before her election as Mayor, Lee represented Oakland in the California Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives for over three decades. During her tenure in Congress, she secured billions in funding for Oakland, supporting community safety programs, local police and fire services, safer and greener streets, small businesses, affordable housing, and the expansion of the environmentally friendly Port of Oakland.
She is a social worker by training and a community organizer at heart. As a graduate student, she founded CHANGE, a mental health clinic serving underserved neighborhoods. She also built a career as a small business owner. Her lived experience fuels her focus on equity, transparency, and results-driven leadership.
Mayor Lee is leading the City of Oakland with a focus on addressing homelessness in partnership with the County and community-based organizations, strengthening public safety through prevention, accountability, and services, reforming City Hall to operate more efficiently and transparently, and ensuring that core city services are delivered reliably for all Oaklanders.
She has always been a staunch advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. A founding member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, she strongly supports the Equality Act to ban discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. She has fought against anti-transgender legislation, has stated that “no form of discrimination should be acceptable in our society,” and has long emphasized that safety, health, and dignity for all members of the LGBTQ+ community should be a priority.
Walking the talk, she is a favorite participant in the Oakland Pride Parade and has declared herself a steadfast ally, saying: “I have always been—and I always will be—an ally and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Linda Tillery
A trailblazer in the Northern California music scene, Linda Tillery has an illustrious career that spans over five decades, during which she has captivated audiences with her soulful voice, masterful percussion, and profound contributions to vocal styling, arranging, music production, and ethnomusicology.
Tillery first made her mark as the lead singer of the psychedelic soul group The Loading Zone in the late 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, she worked as a session musician and vocalist for icons like Santana, Boz Scaggs, Huey Lewis and the News, and the Turtle Island String Quartet. Her pioneering work as an artist and producer at Olivia Records significantly contributed to the Women’s Music genre, leading to collaborations with renowned artists such as June Millington, Deirdre McCalla, Barbara Higbie, Holly Near, Margie Adam, Kenny Loggins, and Bobby McFerrin.
In addition to her performance and production work, Tillery founded the Grammy-nominated Cultural Heritage Choir, a group dedicated to preserving African-American roots music. Her journey has also seen her produce music for documentary films and dance performances, challenge societal norms through powerful songs, and build bridges between diverse cultures.
Not resting on her many laurels, she remains a vital presence in the Bay Area music scene. Most recently, on February 8, 2026, she led the Cultural Heritage Choir in a performance at The Freight in Berkeley. The show was dedicated to the memory of “Soprano Supreme” Tammi Brown and also helped debut the long-awaited release of Tillery’s solo recording Alabama Shoes (https://bit.ly/4tWauCT)
Black History Month
Published on February 26, 2026
Recent Comments