Trove of stolen photos reveals Oakland street life in the 1970s

In July 2021, Tolford was driving home through Oakland’s Clinton neighborhood when he spotted a dozen binders scattered next to a garbage can. Intrigued, he pulled over. When he flipped one open, he was awestruck by what he found inside: Each book contained hundreds of Kodachrome slides, tiny photo copies that analog photographers use to analyze images before printing them full-size. 

Tolford popped a few of the small slides out of the binders and held them up to the sky, trying to decipher the miniscule images. But enough details struck him — was that a tiger sitting in the back of a pickup? — that he knew the photos must be valuable to somebody. So he decided to bring them home for a closer inspection. 

The collection included an incredibly wide range of subjects, from Gov. Jerry Brown sporting a full head of hair to sunsets over the San Francisco Bay. There were even a few tasteful nudes. The frequent appearance of bell-bottoms, Afros, butterfly collars, shag carpets and even shaggier sideburns told him the photos were shot in the late 1970s, but the lack of accompanying notes or inscriptions meant that identifying most of the people or even locations would be a huge challenge, if not completely impossible. But two photos did contain hints of their origins: Someone had written “Raymond Cooper” on one apparent self-portrait, and the name “Aja” on a photo of baby.

Suspecting the binders had been dumped by thieves, Tolford tried reaching out to people named Raymond Cooper or Aja Cooper on Facebook and Instagram, but didn’t hear back immediately. He was in the middle of downsizing during a move to a new apartment, so he made a tough decision to keep a few hundred of his favorite slides, and throw the rest away. Once he’d gotten settled after the move, he rededicated himself to finding the photos’ rightful owner. 

That’s when he contacted me, hoping I could help him track down the Coopers. I’m the host of “East Bay Yesterday,” a podcast focused on local history. Tolford wasn’t the first person to reach out with a request like this; indeed, people often contact me to help solve mysteries regarding urban myths, dusty old maps and mysterious relics found in grandmas’ attics. I’ve even received offers from people who want to donate their old high school yearbooks (sorry, folks, my bookshelves are full!). 

I was happy to help, but before I’d had a chance, Tolford emailed me in triumph. One of the Aja Coopers on Instagram — the daughter of Raymond, it turned out — had replied, and been joyfully reunited with what remained of the collection. 

I reached out to Aja, pronounced “Asia,” to chat about her dad’s eclectic photos. She told me that they reflected his multifaceted life: He was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, an artist, a businessman and a Black Panther. But his true passion was always photography. Once he learned to develop film in the 1970s, his camera became his constant companion; he even built his own dark room to practice the art. In the early 1980s, he elevated his hobby into a career, opening a camera and photo supply shop called Sundance on Webster Street in downtown Oakland. 

That was right around when Aja was born. She told me she still gets deja vu when she’s walking around Oakland and sees buildings from her dad’s photos, like the Cathedral Building, which is seen in a shot of then-Mayor Lionel Wilson talking with a Black cowboy riding a horse down Broadway. “Every time I walk by that building, I think of that photo my dad took,” she told me. 

In the early 1990s, the family moved to Sacramento. A few years later, tragedy struck: Ray returned from work to see firefighters hosing down what remained of their charred home. His stomach dropped when he saw a tarp laid over some lumps in the driveway, terrified his family’s remains might be lying underneath. Peeling back the sooty plastic, he was overjoyed that there were no bodies; his family had all escaped safely. His relief was tempered, though, by the sight of much of his life’s work — a massive collection of photos, slides and cameras — sitting in a puddle of ashy water. 

Ray began to rebuild his collection, but his progress was cut tragically short on May 7, 2000, when he died at the age of 58. He left what remained of his archives to Aja. 

Aja loved having easy access to her dad’s photo binders, but in early 2021, she was getting her apartment ready for the birth of her first child, and needed to clear out some space. So she boxed up the slides and moved them down to a storage unit in the basement of her building, in Oakland’s Ivy Hill neighborhood. Two months later, thieves stole everything she’d left there. 

Aja told me she cried for three days, devastated over losing one of her few remaining connections to her dad. She put up posters offering a reward, but after a few days, she gave up hope of seeing the photos again. Then, a few weeks later, she noticed an Instagram direct message request from an unfamiliar name. The note from Tolford was “the best gift ever,” she told me. When the two met up for the hand-off, Tolford turned down any reward money. 

“Getting to see such a cool snapshot of an era of Oakland that I didn’t get to experience was enough,” he told me.

For Aja, almost losing the photos has made her treasure them even more. “They survived the fire and then this robbery,” she told me. “The collection has dwindled down with each traumatic experience, so the ones that I still have mean so much to me.” 

A few weeks ago, Aja let me borrow the slides to scan for this article. As I was driving home from her apartment with the binders in hand, she sent me a text. “Before all of these small tragedies with the photos happened, it was sad to think how I was the only person who really cared for them. But through these blessings in disguise more people will get to see them and I won’t be the only one that valued his art,” she wrote. 

I suspect there’s at least one other person who will appreciate them a great deal: Aja’s son, who has just started walking. It’s easy to imagine him years from now, flipping through Ray’s photos, wearing a wistful smile that ever-so-slightly resembles his grandfather’s. 

Editor’s note: Most of Ray Cooper’s photos were found without any dates or identifying details attached; we’ve done a little detective work on them, but many of the people and events remain a mystery. If you have any tips about the people or places in the photos above, please send the author a direct message through Instagram or Twitter, or email him at eastbayyesterday@gmail.com.