Oakland’s new motto, “Love Life,” sprang from good intentions: to glue the city together and counter its reputation as a murder capital.

Instead, it spurred a bitter fight at City Hall, where backers embrace the motto as a soulful tribute to a 16-year-old black homicide victim but others see it as bad branding. Still others say it was imposed by a small group before the broader community could engage in a conversation.

The motto won approval in a 5-3 vote by the City Council on April 5, and it will soon appear on signs and promotional materials throughout Oakland. But while it is meant to elicit good feelings, the debate over its adoption exposed Oakland’s racial divide and identity crisis.

In the midst of an economic boom, the city is rapidly becoming gentrified, and its African American population is dwindling. Mayor Libby Schaaf, a homegrown politician who is affluent and white — and not a fan of “Love Life” — has tried to reimagine Oakland as a technology hub and rolled out her own catchphrases, such as “techquity,” to describe the city.

The new city motto pays tribute to LoEshe Adanma Lacy, whose first name means “Love Life” in a Nigerian language. LoEshe was shot to death in 1997 as she sat in a car near MyClymonds High School.

‘Who gets to brand our city’

And while the slogan’s chief backer, Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who is African American, says “Love Life” has become a “rallying cry” for residents who’ve lost faith in the city, Schaaf and others say that message will be lost on the unassuming passerby.

“‘Love Life’ without context or story could mean many things — some not at all appropriate as our city's motto,” Schaaf wrote in an email to the council, urging them not to adopt the phrase.

Citing advice she’d received from the consulting firm Bloomberg Associates, Schaaf said the motto “reinforces the very crime issue” that its leaders are trying to combat. She pointed out that “Love Life” could subject the city to trademark lawsuits, because the slogan is already used by several organizations — including antiabortion groups.

Her email prompted jeers at the April 5 public hearing when Councilman Larry Reid, who is black and supported the motto, read it from the dais.

“It brings up the issue of who gets to brand our city, and what is our city named for,” McElhaney said a week later. “Why does Bloomberg get to say what Oakland is?”

“Love Life” arrived with plenty of fanfare. As the public hearing commenced, children from Oakland’s Young Gifted and Black ensemble performed a rap song in the well of the chambers. McElhaney waved a blown-up photograph of Torian Hughes, a slain 17-year-old whom she helped raise and considered a grandson. LoEshe’s father, actor and comedian Donald Lacy, presented a slideshow featuring photographs of his daughter.

Lacy addressed the council pointedly: “We can make an example to the world,” he said, “if five of you will let God touch your heart and do the right thing.”

The discussion that followed was at points tearful and quickly devolved into personal attacks.

“I had a lot of people say to me that I cannot vote ‘no’ on this issue because I’m white,” said Councilwoman Annie Campbell Washington, who was among the dissenting minority, along with Dan Kalb and Abel Guillen.

Campbell Washington said she was disappointed that an argument over a slogan “had come down to a race issue.”

But there was little way to divorce race from a phrase that’s so entwined with Oakland’s identity — and with who gets to lay claim on the city.

Lacy drew the “Love Life” catchphrase from a foundation he’d formed to honor LoEshe.

15-year history of motto

Remembered for her wide smile and bubbly personality, LoEshe was sitting in the backseat of a 1975 Dodge van parked across the street from McClymonds High School when four masked gunmen ran up and sprayed the car with bullets, which police say were probably intended for the driver.

“On the night she was killed, I was supposed to do a set at the Improv Comedy Club” in Los Angeles, Lacy recalled, a week after the council approved his motto. “I walked into the club and my pager went off — it was a 911 page from her mother.”

He was devastated.

“My career pretty much died a brutal, instant death,” he said.

He first pitched the “Love Life” slogan in 2000, persuading the City Council to pass a resolution proclaiming “Love Life Week.” His childhood friend Dwain Butler revived the cause a decade later, showing up at council meetings and urging officials to paint “Love Life” on all Oakland signs.

Butler recently found an audience with McElhaney. She and Councilwoman Desley Brooks used a special rule to push “Love Life” to the April 5 meeting, over protest from other council members who asked that the issue be studied further.

To not support “Love Life” was to show a lack of empathy, Reid and Brooks argued.

“I would hope that we would not hide behind process in terms of hearing the community’s concern to lift up love and to lift up life,” McElhaney said at the meeting.

Reid told his colleagues that if they’d ever gone out to a homicide scene on the streets of Oakland, they’d support the motto.

“I think if you were looking at young people with a yellow canvas over their bodies, their families sitting there for an hour and a half or two hours waiting for the morgue to come by, you would not vote against this,” he said.

Since the vote, McElhaney said she’s heard positive feedback from Oakland residents of all races — including two white women she ran into at a nail salon on Piedmont Avenue.

Changing signage

In the coming months, Schaaf and other officials will incorporate “Love Life” into Oakland’s marketing. A crop of new signs will cost $21,000, according to a staff report from the city administrator. It will cost $4,600 to put stickers on existing signs.

McElhaney is elated, pondering various ways to convey the message.

“How about, ‘Welcome to Oakland — the town that loves life?’” she offered, a week after the meeting. “Or, ‘Welcome to Oakland — the ‘Love Life’ city?”

The council president sighed wistfully. “I just really like being known as a city of love,” she said.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan