Topics in this book include the great migration of Black sharecroppers from the South to the Bay Area to look for work in the factories and wartime industries beginning in the 1940s, the founding of the East Bay Dragons car club, the Black Panther Party moving down the street from the East Bay Dragons’ East Oakland clubhouse, and the government-sponsored influx of cocaine and crack into the Black community after the Vietnam War and the Black Power Movement.

“Soul on Bikes” brings the reader through the history of Black Oakland from the perspective of Tobie Gene, a very respected factor on the Oakland streets who lived it. Some of the other ghetto stars mentioned in the book are the Ward brothers, a family of notorious pimps in West Oakland, the Dragons’ own Hooker, Heavy, Bags and Lil’ Al, and Black Panther Party Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton.

“Oakland was at its best when the Panthers were around,’ Hooker recalled. “I’m not talking about the negative stuff. I’m talking about the positive aspects. They gave away food to a lot of poor families. People talk about ‘guns, baby, guns,’ but I remember them for the breakfast programs in Oakland. Just as we were running wild on our motorcycles and did our thing, the Panthers were wild about politics and self-defense. It was a great time” (page 124).

“Soul on Bikes” kept my attention, because being from East Oakland, I was familiar with most of the people, topics and organizations that were mentioned in the book, but I didn’t know the history of how everything came to be. Reading “Soul on Bikes,” I learned my own family history early in the book. Tobie Gene talks about having the first Dragons meeting on Empire Road in Brookfield, in Hooker’s garage. Hooker is my uncle, who was one of the founding members of the Dragons, and the first Dragons meeting was held at my grandparents’ house. I never knew that until I read this book.

“Soul on Bikes” will keep the attention of young people, because it includes everything that we have been hyped up to expect out of an action-packed Hollywood movie: drugs, sex, fighting, organization and, most of all, motorcycles and racing.

“A second later, Heavy’s front end hit the ground. Shifting into second gear, the front wheel jerked back up. But then he passed Melvin in the air trying to get old droopy down again. To my horror, I watched Melvin eat Heavy’s dust. By the time Heavy hit third gear, the race was over. I couldn’t believe it. I looked down at my pink slip. Goodbye, Sportster” (page 181).

“Soul on Bikes” goes into the landscape of the West Coast Black biker scene, describing such motorcycle clubs as The Chosen Few and the LA Defiant Ones. Also discussed is the Dragons’ relationship with the white Bay Area Motorcycle Club leader Ralph “Sonny” Barger and the Hells Angels.

What I liked most about the book was that it was not one dimensional in terms of just talking about motorcycles and racing. It put the Dragons’ organization and motorcycle riding into political context, so that the reader has a view of what the Dragons, as well as everyday Black people in East Oakland, were coping with, and how they managed to live through it. Towards the end of the book, Tobie Gene talked about the ever-present menace, cocaine, and how it came in large amounts to the streets of the Town.

“China White Heroin was even smuggled onto the streets of Oakland from the body bags of dead Vietnam vets! Leaders in the Black community suspected our own federal government. Were they mainlining dope into our Black neighborhoods through top secret CIA schemes and Central and South American dictators?” (page 185).

“Soul on Bikes” talked about Oakland in its heyday during the reign of the Black Panther Party and its decline as the ghetto’s “hubba rock stars” took power in the streets.

“Youth gangs in tough Oakland neighborhoods like Sixty-Ninth Village, Ghost Town, Sobrante Park and Brookfield fought over drug dealing turf with Uzi’s and automatic weapons. Every night, innocent Black men, women and children were caught in the crossfire of indiscriminate drive-by shootings. The Reagan 1980s made a lot of white folks rich. But for Black folks, it was an evil, scary time” (page 185-6).

“Soul on Bikes” is a must read for anybody Black who lives in the Bay Area, because this is our story of how we got here and how we maintained our families through all of the turbulent times that add up to the Black experience in this country. This is one of those books that you can give your teenage son to read, and he’ll respect it, because this is the story of the Dragons, whom we in East Oakland know as the manhood of East Oakland.

“Soul on Bikes,” $24.95, from MBI Publishing Co., is available in bookstores or through Classic Motorbooks at (800) 826-6600 or www.motorbooks.com. Meet author Tobie Gene Saturday, Feb. 7, 3:30 p.m., at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Jack London Square, 98 Broadway, Oakland, (510) 272-0120. Email JR at fire@sfbayview.com.