Prometheus 6

"The city is experiencing growth, yet we're losing African-American families disproportionately," Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, "we lose part of our soul."

San Francisco has been losing black population since the late 1960s and this loss, for the most part, is directly attributable to the so-called urban renewal program in the Western Addition (Fillmore District) that cleared 75 blocks (272 acres) of land that contained housing and small businesses. Many of the same people in the black community lamenting this loss played a direct and indirect role in creating this problem. There is nothing to be done at this late date. Nothing.

Gavin Newsom, the current mayor, inherited a problem that his mentor and predecessor, Willie. L. Brown, Jr., did virtually nothing to address during his three decades in the state Assembly representing the Western Addition and did even less during his two terms as mayor. Newsom, in fairness, cannot be blamed for this development. It began before he was born and it will continue after he leaves the mayor's office.

Community and economic development strategies that are not created with a fix on controlling the land, i.e., real estate, are of limited benefit to black neighborhoods and communities. Bringing in big box retail stores and developers of office buildings only create the facade of community and economic development needed by the residents of these communities. This type of development provides benefits for an emerging, and now apparently triumphant, entrepreneurial class within the black community, but little trickle down benefits for the black residents of these neighborhoods. In fact, the elected leaders representing these communities almost invariably will align themselves with these business interests and use the black community's political capital to extract various government concessions to benefit these same business interests.

the first competitive white candidate? that's real news. REAL news.

people in detroit have been scared about whites coming back for about 15 years. it's about to be a reality. at the very least i wouldn't be surprised if there was a move towards a more powerful regional government system. the days of living an hour and a half from where you work are over in michigan.

Just curious.

Willie L. Brown, Jr. is an enormously talented and shrewd politician. He is also extremely bright. I once watched him talk for 45 minutes about a tax bill that was before his committee in the state Assembly and never refer to his notes as he wrote on a blackboard for the benefit of those of us in the hearing room. If he were white, he would have been, in my opinion, elected governor or to the U.S. Senate. These are some facts about him that should never be overlooked or forgotten.

There are some other facts, too, that should not be forgotten or overlooked, although I am certain that Brown and some of the black sycophants in San Francisco who support him wish that folks like me - black and white - would forget. In 1964, Brown became the first black person ever elected to any public office in the City and County of San Francisco. In the popular imagination, San Francisco is seen as a liberal haven but this reputation is of relatively recent origin and even now it still does not apply to blacks en masse.

Blacks were widely discriminated against in San Francisco in employment (public and private), housing, criminal justice and other areas. Brown's opponent was a long time incumbent Democratic Assemblyman, Edward Gaffney, an Irish-American and Catholic of no discernible skills, who routinely referred to Brown when he, Gaffney, was meeting with his white constituents in their homes and social clubs as a "nigger." Brown failed to knock Gaffney off the first time he challenged him in the Democratic primary in 1962 but, by 1964, the demographics of the district had changed and Brown easily defeated Gaffney in a hard fought and bitter campaign.

One of the major factors in Brown's victory was the enormous growth of the city's black population in the Western Addition ( aka The Fillmore). In 1940, for example, San Francisco's black population was slightly more than 4,800 but by the end of the decade it was more than 48,000. By 1960, the city's black population had climbed to well over 100,000. In the late 1950s, this section of the city, which had previously been the home and commercial and cultural center for the city's Japanese-Americans who had been displaced as a result of the wartime interment program, was targeted for urban renewal. The fact that Chinatown, for example, which had significantly higher rates of dilapidated housing and commercial buildings and communicable diseases such as tuberculosis was not targeted for urban renewal has always cast a veil of suspicion on the motives of the city.

Despite having been a beneficiary of the growth of the city's black population, Willie Brown did little, if anything, to assist community activists and groups in opposing this program. I have read, for example, the minutes for a five year period of the city's Redevelopment Agency. The only time Brown's name shows up in these records is when he appears as a private attorney representing developers whose projects were being considered by the Redevelopment Commission.

In other words, Brown was being paid to support projects that would eventually displace the very people who had used their political capital and votes to elevate him to public office. Brown eventually became a staunch and unwavering supporter and proponent of the sort of downtown high-rise development that fueled the upward pressure on the city's dwindling supply of affordable housing (275 acres or 75 square blocks of the Fillmore were wiped clean of housing) that forced more and more blacks to finally leave the city in search of cheaper housing.

Brown and his colleagues often declared that high-rise downtown development provided jobs. Yes, it did but not for black men and women during the construction phase and not for many once the buildings were open for business. Brown has never spoken out about how the trade and craft unions continued to deny blacks entry into their ranks as apprentices. My late father, for example, who was a highly skilled welder simply filed federal charges against the Ironworkers Union and gained entry as a journeymen that way. My father had come to the conclusion that black men like him were on their own. Black officials like Brown would not help nor would organizations like the NAACP or the vaunted A. Phillip Randolph Institute. I think that many older and younger members of the black community realized that they had made a deal with the devil but it was too late to do anything by then.

Brown, in my opinion, has also been an absolutely abysmal political father to younger black men in the city. He views all of them, in my opinion, as potential threats even if they have never expressed the slightest interest in running for political office. The result is that there is no black political infrastructure in San Francisco save for sycophants who owe their jobs or appointments to various boards and commissions to Brown. They are incapable of taking the sort of independent and visionary political stances and acts that would prevent the further erosion of the city's black population. It is all over including the shouting.

write a book, pt.

Yes, keto, I should write a book but not about Willie Brown and the betrayal of the city's black electorate.

Well, I think the Willie Brown book would put a lesson out about both elected leaders and the history of San Francisco. I was having a conversation with some folks today, and most of us have an idealized image of that city.

Keto -

Click on this link or paste it into your browser:

http://www.pbs.org/kqed/fillmore/learning/time.html

Once you get to the website scroll down the timeline to 1963. Look to the right and you will see a small photograph of James Baldwin. Click on that link and watch an excerpt from a long suppressed documentary that Baldwin did in 1963. I believe the person Baldwin is talking to is the late Dr. Nathaniel Burbridge, M.D. Dr. Burbridge was part of a group of "Young Turks" who seized through democratic means the control of the local chapter of the NAACP from Noah Webster Griffin, Sr. and others in the community who can only be described as racial accommodationists. They abhorred protest and raising their voices at white people. Mr. Griffin lived in the Richmond District, which was virtually all white at the time and attended an integrated church founded by Dr. Howard Thurman. Mr. Griffin was an honorable man but he was the wrong man to run the local NAACP at the time. BTW, Willie Brown was briefly part of the "Young Turks."

I referred to the Baldwin film as being long suppressed because, after it was shown once on PBS, it was placed in the vaults and never screened again. A few years ago, I tracked down the film and discovered that it had been placed in the archives at the library at San Francisco State University. I contacted the archivist and inquired about obtaining a copy of the film. She initially told me that it was impossible because of the format the film was originally made in. I think she said that it was in one and one-half inch tape or, perhaps, three and one-half inch tape. In any case, she said that the university had no means to transfer anything from the master tape because it no longer possessed the right equipment.

Since I firmly believe that one monkey can't stop no show I contacted my college roommate and still close friend, Larry Adelman, who is a producer with California Newsreel. Larry became excited when I told him about this Baldwin film and he contacted a company that has the equipment to make copies from the master. He also told me that Newsreel would pick up the costs of renting the equipment and making the copies. We also agreed that Newsreel would make two copies for the library at State as well.

At this point I thought we were set but up jumped the devil again. When I contacted the archivist and informed of her what we planned to do she now told me that she was not sure if she could allow copies of the film to be made, even for students at the school to see it, because she was not sure that the university had rights to the film. I then asked her who had the rights and was told that it was WNYC in New York. The station had paid for the production of the film.

I contacted the appropriate parties at WNYC and spoke to them on several occasions over the course of six weeks. The upshot was that WNYC, although it does not have a copy of the film, will not allow us to make a copy of the film because, well, because it needs, according to the official I spoke to at WNYC, to renew the licensing agreements with the parties who were in the film. This is pure unadulterated bullshit.

I am not through with the library at the California State University in San Francisco quite yet, no matter what WNYC says. If the library has a copy of the film, then it should make the film available for students to view especially if it will not cost the university one thin dime. I have known the current chair of the Board of Trustees for the California State University system for many years and we have mutual friends. James Baldwin's film will be seen again.

Sad chapter in Western Addition History Ending

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency will leave the Western Addition in January, ending a 40-year "urban renewal" project that was touted as a move to wipe out blight but actually destroyed the city's most prominent African American neighborhood.

In total, 883 businesses were shuttered and 4,729 households were forced out, according to city officials. Roughly 2,500 Victorian homes were demolished.

There are mixed feelings about the agency's departure, with some happy to see it go and others wanting more of an effort to repair the damage.

Agency officials admit that mistakes were made during the project, but a state law requires that they leave at the end of the year.

To Read More:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/20/BA6511Q4G0.DTL&tsp=1

That's because they're done, and ready to work on Hunters Point.

True. So True. One could see it coming. The Negro Removal Program rolls on.

Thanks for posting this, PT. I will take a close look at this over the weekend.