Historians tell us that San Francisco was unlike many Eastern cities that had heavily populated black ghettos in the 20s and 30s from Southern migrations at the turn of the century. Two major studies of San Francisco's black community, Douglas Daniels's Pioneer Urbanites and Albert Broussard's Black San Francisco, employ demographic comparisons with Eastern cities prior to WW II to account for the absence of a black ghetto in San Francisco. The invisibility of the black community in San Francisco seems to have come full circle. With a noticeably shrinking black population, political gains wrought by the Civil Rights struggle, including the legislative career of Mayor Willie Brown, have not affected the rate of black migration from the city. One important political implication of the current demographic shift is increased marginalization of the black community, a consequence that is incongruous with San Francisco's image of itself as socially progressive.

The history of African-American political struggle in San Francisco is inextricably linked with demographic change. Harlem Renaissance historian, Nathan Huggins, speaking as a native of San Francisco, credits black San Franciscans before WW II with a political complacency that accommodated social inequality (Daniels 1990). Both this complacency, as well as the myth of racial tolerance that has long been associated with San Francisco, can be viewed as a function of demographics. Prior to WW II the much larger Chinese and Asian groups suffered the brunt of racial violence in San Francisco (Broussard 1993). By comparison with the Asian experience, black San Franciscans appear to have been tolerated because they were not the focus of race riots and lynchings. Many of the early black migrants interviewed by Daniels seemed grateful that they were spared the experience of African Americans in other parts of the country. They escaped the fate of their more populous Asian brethren because, with not more than 5,000 until 1940, African Americans posed no political threat.

Huggins also noted that in the absence of "conspicuous numbers" black San Franciscans were more apt to submerge racial identity and minimize difference. For African Americans living in San Francisco during the 20s and 30s acceptance by the mainstream was contingent on racial invisibility. The political leverage to begin demanding fair treatment and respect would not come until the black migration of the 1940s. Since resistance to discrimination required a strong assertion of racial identity, black San Franciscan's were faced with Du Bois's classic dilemma of double-consciousness. But given their small numbers the question of whether to assert racial identity, or to seek absorption into the mainstream was not a genuine choice. Prior to 1940 they could do neither.

To expose the city's image of racial tolerance as a myth historians often cite employment and income data that clearly indicate discrimination against African-Americans in San Francisco prior to WW II. I want to take a closer look at the manner in which this myth supports a system of racial discrimination. Sargent Johnson, an accomplished bay area multimedia artist, negotiated the Du Bosian dilemma with great success. With African Americans virtually locked out of every skilled profession, how was it possible for a black artist aligned with the Harlem Renaissance to excel in San Francisco's elite artist community in the 20s and 30s? Although Johnson's art, especially in his later period, was not exclusively devoted to racial images, he gained early recognition through his prize-winning submissions in the Harmon Foundation exhibitions of the work of Negro artists, as well as in other local and national competition. He managed to assert a strong black identity in his art without losing the racial invisibility required for mainstream acceptance. This apparent contradiction in Johnson's art reveals an important insight regarding the ideological function of San Francisco's myth of racial tolerance, namely, that by relying on political complacency it masks social inequality.

Although Johnson's interest in African art and the visual representation of African-Americans was shaped largely by his association with the Harlem Renaissance artists and the influence of Alain Locke, his distant location on the West coast has been an important factor in his construction as an African-American artist. Commentators rightly assume that there wasn't much of a black community in San Francisco, but they fail to consider the social significance of Johnson's mixed-race background in this context. With Johnson's African-American identity in mind they often conclude that he was "isolated." If this claim is taken to mean either that he was not a part of the art scene (centered on the East coast), or that he was not connected with the black community, it is very misleading. Johnson participated in all ten of the Harmon Foundation exhibitions of Negro art, as well as in an equal number of local and national exhibitions. In newspaper articles from the 30s and 40s, either his identity as an African-American artist was taken for granted because of the racial content of his art, or ignored as irrelevant. To use Dick Hebdige's phrase, Johnson seems to have been hiding in the light (Hebdige 1988). Knute Stiles points this out in his review of the Oakland Museum's retrospective of Johnson's work. Stiles claimed to have known Johnson for several years before he mentioned that he was a Negro; I hadn't noticed. I was to learn that he had publicized his blackness during the political thirties and always acknowledged his dedication to raising his black brothers out of poverty and misery (Stiles 1971). Unlike some of his family members who preferred not to identify themselves, or live, as African-Americans, Johnson chose not to pass, although he apparently was not opposed to capitalizing on his status as ethnically indistinct. There were several reasons Johnson's career in San Francisco during the 30s and 40s was not hampered by his racial background, but a paramount factor was that, in many circumstances, he was not perceived to be a black person.

If we situate Johnson's art in the context of what bay area artists were doing, it clearly reflects a cultural pluralism that did not exist in other parts of the United States. It is in this sense that the myth is sustained by Johnson's success. But if we consider the fact that Johnson self-consciously avoided raising political issues in his work we come closer to understanding why the idea of racial tolerance in San Francisco is only a myth.

The ambivalence those of us who take ourselves to be progressive sometimes feel towards Johnson's art derives from his refusal to use his art to advocate social change. When we consider Johnson's relationship with the black community the question arises as to whether he trained any black artist to painting murals in black churches, or, as a WPA unit supervisor, whether he included any black artists in any of his projects. Virtually nothing has been written about his relations with other Third World artists in the bay area. When we celebrate Sargent Johnson as one of San Francisco's great artists we must not fail to consider his success in relation to the social environment from which he emergedincluding the community of black artists with whom he associated in San Francisco.

--by Tommy Lott, excerpted from "Black Consciousness in the Art of Sargent Johnson" in Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture, A City Lights Anthology, 1997