Sobrante Park is located in East Oakland CA, separated from the rest of the city by railroad tracks and industrial neighborhoods. It was built shortly after World War II, and was one of the first suburban-style working-class black neighborhoods in the city of Oakland.

In the 1980s the neighborhood became a center of crack cocaine dealing. A large gang from the neighborhood gave itself the nickname, "11-5" (or "11-500") which refers to the section of California State's legal code for drug crimes. A memorial to 32 men and six women members of the gang who have been killed since then (as of 2002) was painted on the basketball court in Carney Park, a local park named after a young man from the neighborhood who died in the Vietnam war.

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