After several students from nearby Santa Fe Elementary School were killed at this busy intersection, the Anti-Poverty Center and the Black Panther Party began demanding a traffic signal in June 1967. When the Oakland City Council notified the community that a traffic signal would take a year and a half to erect, a small cadre of armed Black Panthers stopped motorists and personally escorted students across the intersection. Installation of the traffic signal began on August 1, 1967, less than two months later, and no further automobile-related deaths or injuries occurred at this location during that period.