Click on any picture to view its article Mary "Mammy" Pleasant was born a slave on a Georgia plantation. After fleeing the south for her involvement with the underground railroad, she became a very powerful woman of mid 1850's San Francisco. During the 1940's as many as 40,000 blacks migrated to San Francisco to take advantage of the many war related jobs. During the late 1940s new clubs opened up in the Tenderloin, North Beach, Waterfront and other neighborhoods, offering up bebop sounds. Almost forgotten: A young man is shot & killed running from police in 1966 and results in a city-wide riot. The history of African-American political struggle in San Francisco is inextricably linked with demographic change. The level of African-American political organizing rose and fell over the years in San Francisco beginning with the 1850's SF Executive Committee. Return to Intro Page