African Americans in San Francisco, California, composed just under 6% of the city's total population as of 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, down from 13.4% in 1970. There are about 55,000 people of full or partial black ancestry living within the city. The community began with workers and entrepreneurs of the California Gold Rush in the 19th century, and in the early to mid-20th century, grew to include migrant workers with origins in the Southern United States, who worked as railroad workers or service people at shipyards. In the mid-20th century, the African American community in the Fillmore District earned the neighborhood the nickname the "Harlem of the West," referring to New York City's Harlem neighborhood, which is associated with African American culture.
Among the United States' biggest 14 cities, San Francisco is near the bottom in the percentage of Black residents, along with San Jose, which is about four percent Black.
The Black population of San Francisco has a large presence in Bayview-Hunters Point, SoMa, Fillmore District, and Visitacion Valley; and a decreased presence in Oceanview, and Potrero Hill.
History
Early California to the 19th-century People of African descent first appeared in California from Mexico due to the Spanish Conquest. Influential people of African ancestry were among the earliest California settlers and landowners.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio business woman of mixed race with African ancestry. She is considered the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", as an early settler of Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). William Alexander Leidesdorff, helped establish the city of San Francisco.
During the 1849–1855 California Gold Rush, African Americans came to the San Francisco-area along with others from all over the world. Some came as enslaved people and worked the gold mines, others came as free entrepreneurs seeking to create a better life. Slavery was forbidden in California, when it entered the Union as a free state in 1850, but Black residents still faced discriminatory laws in education and employment and did not have the right to vote or testify against whites. In response, they created political organizations like the SF. Executive Committee and the Franchise League. Until the Fugitive Slave Act expired in 1855, they also risked being captured and sold into slavery unless they could prove they had lived in the state since before 1849.African American City Wide Historic Context Statement, City and County of San Francisco, 2016
The third of three statewide Colored Conventions was held in San Francisco in 1857, which resulted in the creation of California's first Black newspaper, the Mirror of the Times.Lapp, Rudolph, Blacks in Gold Rush California Yale University Press, 1977 Other post Gold Rush black newspapers included the Pacific Appeal and the Elevator, edited by Phillip Alexander Bell. By 1860, there were 1,176 African-Americans living in San Francisco, or 2% of the city's population, most of them middle class.Giesberg, Judith, The Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front, University of Northern Carolina Press, 2009, p. 98 The San Francisco Athenaeum and Literary Society, established in 1853, which included a saloon and an 800 book library, was a gathering place for African-Americans at that time.City and County of San Francisco, African American Citywide Historic Context Statement, 2016
The new community established the first black Baptist church west of the Rockies in 1852, originally called the First Colored Baptist Church of San Francisco, and now known as the Third Baptist Church, a city-designated landmark on McAllister Street. Other African American churches founded in 1852 in San Francisco included Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Bethel AME Church), and First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (First AME Zion Church).Philip M. Montesano, San Francisco Black Churches in the Early 1860's: Political Pressure Groups, California Historical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp 145-152,
Despite discrimination in employment, by 1862, African-Americans in San Francisco owned $300,000 in assets, mostly real estate. $100,000 of this was owned by two people: Mary Ellen Pleasant ($30,000) and a partner of hers, Richard Barber ($70,000).City and County of San Francisco, (2016), African-American City Wide Historic Context Statement George Washington Dennis was the city's wealthiest African American man; he was a former slave, turned entrepreneur, real estate developer, and advocate for Black rights.
By the 1870s, the Gold Rush boom was over; 60% of African-American men and 97% of women were working in the service industry, as waiters, draymen, porters, maids, ship cooks, stewards. The rise of discriminatory white labor unions in the late 19th century, compounded by increased immigration from Europe and Asia, made it harder for black residents to find jobs. In 1885, the Palace Hotel replaced their entire black staff with white union workers.City and County of San Francisco, Africa American Citywide Historic Context Statement, 2016
20th century From 1921 until 1972, the Madame C.J. Walker Home for Girls and Women was in operation in Upper Fillmore (Lower Pacific Heights), a charitable, community and social services organization for single African American woman new to San Francisco, who were not eligible to use the YWCA. Around the 1920s during the end of the Barbary Coast-era, Terrific Street was an entertainment district in San Francisco and it was home to numerous black and tan clubs (interracial clubs that highlighted African American culture), where Black musicians and entrepreneurs contributed to San Francisco's rollicking nightlife scene. Former-Pullman Porters, Lew Purccell and Sam King owned the black and tan "So Different Club" and "Purcell's", where pianist Sid Pirotti played in a ragtime ensemble.Leta E. Miller, Music and Politics in San Francisco, University of California Press, p. 97 Jelly Roll Morton opened the Jupiter club on Columbus Avenue in 1917, also a black and tan club.
During the Second Great Migration of the 20th century, the San Francisco Bay Area was a destination for African Americans coming out of the South. The city's Black population rose considerably during World War II, when the War Manpower Commission recruited African Americans from the South to work the recently acquired Naval Docks in Hunters Point of San Francisco. Word soon spread that African Americans could find work in San Francisco, with many of them moving to the newly constructed war housing in Hunter's Point.
By the end of World War II, the center for Black life, music and entertainment had moved to the Fillmore District, earning it the title of "Harlem of the West."Silva and Watts, Harlem of The West, Heyday Books, February 3, 2020 A small, but existent community of African Americans were present in the Fillmore District after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but it wasn't until World War II when the Fillmore District and San Francisco as a whole began to have a large African-American population. Between the years of 1940 and 1950 the African American population of San Francisco grew from 4,836 to 43,460.Lai, Clement. "The Racial Triangulation Of Space: The Case Of Urban Renewal In San Francisco's Fillmore District."Annals Of The Association Of American Geographers 102.1 (2012): 151-170. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. October 24, 2016. going from 0.5% to 4.5% of the city's total population. A vast majority of these African Americans went on to occupy the Fillmore District. This large migration of African Americans was due to three major factors. The first was that the Japanese internment in 1942 left a large number of unoccupied homes and businesses within the Fillmore. The second was that the shipbuilding industry and wartime economy created by WWII brought a large number of wartime jobs into the city.Miller, Paul T. The Postwar Struggle for Civil Rights: African Americans in San Francisco, 1945-1975. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. The third was that many African Americans left the south in the Great Migration in order to escape the Jim Crow laws which existed there.
After the war, the African American population contributed significantly to the growing jazz culture in the Fillmore, with clubs, such as Jimbo's Bop City and the New Orleans Swing Club (ca 1950–1965), flourishing there. Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, and Dexter Gordon were entertainers who performed in the Fillmore during its heyday. In addition, the trend of African American migration to the city and the district continued at a fast pace until it reached a peak of about 13 percent in the 1970s.San Francisco's Japantown. n.p.: Charleston, S.C. : Arcadia, , 2005. Ignacio: USF Libraries Catalog. Web. October 31, 2016.
The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples was opened in 1948 by Howard Thurman, becoming the first racially integrated interfaith church in the United States.
The influx of African Americans during and after WWII created a large amount of racial tensions. Many African Americans were forced to live in certain neighborhoods of the city and were denied employment by various businesses. San Francisco's housing discrimination against its Black residents received media attention when San Francisco Giants' baseball legend Willie Mays' attempt to buy a home in St. Francis Wood in 1957 was refused because of his race. In the early 1960s, blacks and whites demonstrated against discriminatory hiring practices at San Francisco's department stores, hotels, drive-ins, grocery stores, banks and car dealerships. The Civil Rights Movement succeeded in making significant legal gains for African Americans and many other ethnic groups.Harris, April L. "Fillmore District, San Francisco | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed." Fillmore District, San Francisco. BlackPast, 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2016. However, there are still significant social tensions which exist today.
From its high point in the 1970s, San Francisco's Black population has dwindled for a variety of reasons, including the city's high cost of living, urban renewal which tore down black neighborhoods, gentrification, redlining, and Black exodus from high crime areas to the suburbs.
Social issues and relationship with police
The city's African American community has had a mixed-opinion relationship with the San Francisco Police Department and law enforcement in the Bay Area. Instances of race riots, police brutality and mass incarceration have been a concern for many African-American leaders, pastors, and civilians. In 2013, a San Francisco Chronicle article's statistics showed that 56% of the San Francisco County Jail's inmates are Black, which is 9-10 times higher than the city's African American residence percentage, which was 6-7% during this time period. Those who were considered to be in need of specialized mental health help, rose from 56% in 2008, to 71% in 2013, which accounted for inmates of all races. People who were Black and Hispanic American made up a higher proportion of officer-involved fatalities in the Bay Area, which African Americans making up 27% of the 110 deaths from January 2015 to July 2018. This is roughly four times higher than the Bay Area's 7-8% Black community.