When the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958, their star centerfielder Willie Mays was unable to purchase a home in the Forest Hill neighborhood just west of Twin Peaks, due to racist covenants restricting non-whites from buying property in that area. After the very public intercession of then-Mayor George Christopher, Willie got his home a few days later.
Rising racism in pre-Civil War San Francisco led to an exodus of black settlers to the more open Canadian island of Victoria. African-Americans have always encountered a very racist white population in San Francisco.
Until the Big Strike of 1934 , unions were exclusively white, pushing blacks to act as strikebreakers during numerous strikes between the 1890s and 1930s. Even though there were never more than a couple of thousand African-Americans in San Francisco (until the WWII influx), it was difficult for them to find decent work in San Francisco outside of domestic labor. This situation was underscored in the 1880s when white trade unions pressured the Palace Hotel into firing all their black employees. It wasn't until the civil rights campaigns of the early 1960s that African-Americans regained meaningful access to employment at the (Sheraton) Palace Hotel.
After more than 40,000 African-Americans migrated to San Francisco to work in wartime industries, the Fillmore district became famous as a black cultural center, home to dozens of vibrant jazz and blues clubs, restaurants, and a thriving commercial district. Post-war corporate planning targeted their centrally-located neighborhood for San Francisco's version of a national program of slum clearance, euphemstically known as "redevelopment." Today's Western Addition is the legacy of that program and the strong community opposition that erupted during the social ferment of the 1960s and early 70s.
Our website offers some of the pieces that appear in our African-Americans in San Francisco chapter on the public kiosk and CD-ROM versions of Shaping San Francisco. We hope you will give us your comments, criticisms and amplifications. These histories are offered as a starting point for exploring the lives of African-Americans in San Francisco.
--Chris Carlsson
