Black San Francisco

For over a century African-Americans have shaped the contours of San Francisco, a globally recognized metropolis, but their histories remain hidden. While endangered, Black San Francisco is still very much alive, and its history is an inextricable piece of the city's social and cultural fabric. This course aims to uncover the often-overlooked history of African-Americans in the city of San Francisco. The history of Black San Francisco unravels the myth of San Francisco liberalism showing how systemic racial oppression greatly limited the social mobility of non-whites well into the 20th century. Conversely, this course will also highlight the rich cultural and artistic legacies of Black San Franciscans with special attention on their ability to create social. Starting with the small, but influential middle and upper classes of African-Americans, who supported abolitionism from the West in the mid-late nineteenth century, to the rapid growth of the black population during WWII and moving through post-war struggles against the forces of Jim Crow and environmental racism. This course will explore: What is Black San Francisco? How did African-Americans shape the culture and politics of San Francisco, and where does the history of Black San Francisco fit into the broader national historical narrative? Conversely, what is unique about San Francisco and similar black communities in the West? How do we reconstruct the past of people going South to West as opposed to South to North? And finally, as raised in the critically acclaimed 2019 film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco and eluded by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, where does black San Franciscans, go from here?