Updated October 2022
The William M. Stephens family was a successful African American family from Oakland. They owned the Stephens Restaurant, and their daughter Virginia won acclaim at the age of fourteen when her name, Jewel City, was selected for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition buildings in a competition sponsored by the San Francisco Call-Post. Virginia was the first African American woman to receive a law degree from the University of California. Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law in 1929.
Circa 1925 – photo by M.L. Cohen
Stephens Family papers, MS 5, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
The Stephens Family
Stephens Family papers, MS 5, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California
William Stephens was born in 1870 in Accomack County, Virginia. He moved to California as a child and attended school in Oakland and San Francisco. After graduation, Stephens completed Heald College coursework before working with the Southern Pacific Railway in 1886. Beginning as a Sleeping Car Porter, he worked his way up to a clerkship under H.E. Huntington, the company’s President’s assistant.
In 1894, he lived at 1132 Linden Street in West Oakland.
In 1898, Stephens resigned from Southern Pacific and took a position with the Crocker family. During these travels, Stephens learned about the hotel and restaurant business.
In 1901, he married Pauline Logan (1874-1929) of Tehama, California.
Stephens Family papers, MS 5, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
Pauline gave birth to one daughter, Annie Virginia (who went by Virginia), on April 7, 1903. Due to his daughter’s health problems as a young girl, Stephens resigned from his post with the Crockers and began working at an Oakland social club. He moved on from this position in 1915 to manage the clubhouse at the Hotel Del Monte Golf and Country Club in Monterey County.
Pauline died in May 1929.
William died on November 21, 1932
Stephens’ Restaurant
Stephens worked at the Del Monte Hotel for about nine years, where he learned more about the restaurant business. His first venture was the Joy Lunch Room. He was successful in his first business, and in 1927, the old Joy Lunch became known as Stephens Restaurant.
Stephens Family papers, MS 5, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California
The restaurant soon became the dining rendezvous of the city’s ultra-fashionable folk and provided lucrative employment to young African American men and women.
Stephens’ restaurant grew from small quarters into an ample establishment seating over 200 people, occupying three locations near Lake Merritt.
Stephens Family papers, MS 5, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
The restaurant enjoyed great success during the 1920s and 1930s and was usually filled. Stephens took great delight in employing African American high school and college students so they could earn money for their education.
In 1936, it was announced that the restaurant had added a cocktail lounge and was under the management of George Devant and Charles Simpson (Stephens’s nephew). Charles inherited the recipes that made the restaurant famous.
The final location of the restaurant was 200 East 14th (now International Blvd) at 2nd Ave. It was in business until 1938, when Narcissi’s Italian Restaurant opened.
Stephens Cocktail Lounge
Known to gourmets for years as the
“home of real Southern cooking”
Oakland Tribune Mar 27, 1936
Virginia Stephens
Annie Virginia Stephens, the only child of William and Paul, was born in Oakland on April 7, 1903. She attended public schools in Oakland until the family moved to Pacific Grove, where she graduated from high school.
In 1915, the San Francisco Call-Post held a naming contest for the buildings within the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Virginia won the competition (1,300 titles were submitted) when her name, “Jewel City,” was selected; she was twelve at the time.
“We regret to say that when it was discovered that Miss Stephens had colored blood there was a sudden silence on the part of the press and the recognition ever given her was a season ticket to the grounds.”
The Crisis, Vol. 11 pg 36, No. 1
College
Virginia attended the University of California at Berkeley and received a bachelor’s degree in science in 1924.
While at Berkeley, Virginia, Ida L. Jackson was a charter member of the Rho Chapter in 1921 and Alpha Nu Omega, a graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. These were among the first Greek sororities for African American women west of the Mississippi.
African American Museum and Library at Oakland.
Encouraged by her father to attend law school, she enrolled in the Boalt School of Law at UC Berkeley and earned a degree in 19 9. At that time, she was only the second woman to receive a law degree from the school and the first African American woman to complete the program. Virginia passed the California Bar the same year, the first African American female Attorney in California.
Virginia married attorney George Coker (1906-1970) The Cokers helped tutor African American students for the State bar exams They moved to Virginia and maintained a private law practice there for almost a decade.
In 1939 after working in private practice for ten years, they moved back to California, settling in Sacramento. Virginia was appointed Attorney in the State Office of the Legislature Council in Sacramento in May 1939 In this capacity, she helped with drafting and amending legislative bills and worked under four different legislative councils:
Upon her retirement in 1966, Virginia attained the position of Deputy of the Indexing Section. She died in Sacramento on February 11, 1986, at the age of 83.
More:
- Guide to the Stephens Family Papers – Online Archive of California
- Menu from the Stephens Restaurant – Oakland Public Library
- Virginia Stephens Coker – The Black Past
- Letter re Jewel City – November 16, 1915
- Activities Among Negroes – Oakland Tribune May 18, 1924
- Admitted to the Bar – Oakland Tribune September 13, 1929
- Large Volume of Business At Restaurant – Oakland Tribune October 19, 1930
- Stephans’ Expects Capacity – Oakland Tribune December 30, 1935
- Annie Virginia Stephens Coker – WordPress
- Annie Coker: A pioneer California lawyer –