Californiablackhistory.com
African-American heritage as the gap closer
Oakland -- Two-thirds of students in California classrooms would be more curious and excited about their lessons if there was more infusion of African-American heritage on a regular basis.
Historian John William Templeton reported results of an online survey of social science and special education teachers and librarians during the 2007 keynote address to the California Council for Social Studies conference, two days after the state-mandated commemorative day Black American Day on Wednesday, March 5, the anniversary of Crispus Attucks’ death during the Boston Massacre.
.Past president of the American Educational Research Association, Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings defines such teaching in a 1994 book as “using cultural and historical referents to convey knowledge, to impart skills and to change attitudes.”
Lincoln and San Francisco
All the tools an educator or parent needs to tell a complete and riveting account of the central role of African-Americans in California history. The books have been cited by the California Sesquicentennial Commission and the Friends of the San Francisco Library.
Historian John William Templeton along with architects Miles Stevens and Charu Sharma and Dr. Johnetta Richards, associate professor of Africana studies at San Francisco State, have researched more than 800 sites as part of the Invisible Pioneers context statement study. The city has had a continuous black press since 1857 and has six black organizations, including three churches, which are more than 150 years old. African-Americans have lived throughout the city’s neighborhoods for more than 100 years. Yet there is only one state registered historic site relating to their history.
Religious More than 60 current congregations worship in sanctuaries predating 1930.including 20 built before 1906.
Woh Hei Yuen Park, John and Powell Streets, original site of Bethel A.M.E. Church, the city’s first African-American congregation in February 1852, celebrating 157 years this month
Pearl Gate Missionary Baptist Church, 15 Bayview, one of the city’s oldest church buildings, constructed in 1871 and New Home Baptist Church, , constructed in 1880
1908 site of Third Baptist Church, 1255 Hyde Street, built immediately after the 1906 earthquake. Previous site was in Union Square where I. Magnin now sits.
Ingleside Presbyterian Church, 1345 Ocean also built in 1909, after the quake. Now home to the Great Cloud of Witnesses murals
Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, 2041 Larkin, constructed in 1907, attracted Dr. Howard Thurman, Dean of Chapel from Howard University, to create an interracial congregation Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited was written in San Francisco. Martin Luther King Jr. always kept a copy on his person.
Current sanctuary of Third Baptist Church, 1399 McAllister, constructed in 1952 under Rev. F.D. Haynes, was erected on the site of abolitionist Capt. Charles Goodall’s mansion, where President U.S. Grant had visited and uses lumber and furnishings from that mansion. Its pulpit has welcomed Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King, among others..
Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, constructed in 1906, 2135 Sutter St. Rev. George Bedford led ministers to back the sit-in demonstrations which desegregated Auto Row and the city’s hotels in the early 1960s
First A.M.E. Zion Church, was the church which hosted the meeting in April 1858 where 800 blacks decided to leave California after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. The current building, at 2163 Golden Gate, was built under a pastor relocated from Alabama who had been the first president of the Montgomery, AL Improvement Association before Dr. Martin Luther King.
Neighborhoods. Waterfront. From 1850 through the 1940s, more than 1,000 African-Americans lived in the area bounded by the shoreline and Nob Hill.
Western Addition. From Van Ness to Baker Streets from Hayes to Sacramento, hundreds of blacks owned residences dating from the 1890s to current times such as the Frazier-Toombs House in the 1300 block of Baker Street, built in 1900. One of the earliest was Bert Williams, whose house still stands on Golden Gate near Divisadero. In 1929, more than 200 black homeowners lived between Post and Sacramento Streets. The Mary Stewart Foundation, named for the founder of the Booker T. Washington Center, fund scholarships from her home near Golden Gate and Stanyan.
Marina. Dozens of black homeowners lived in the Marina District in the years from 1890 through the 1940s, including Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton at Broderick and Lombard.
South Beach. The former Pullman hotel, near the Southern Pacific railroad, is still at 236 Townsend St. Blacks, who were restricted to jobs as porters, lived at the hotel.
OMI. The home of Cecil Poole, 90 Cedro St. was subject of a cross-burning when the lawyer and former NAACP president moved into the neighborhood in the 1950s. Poole was later to enforce the civil rights laws as U.S. attorney and District and Appeals Court Judge.
Mission. George Walker, Bert Williams’ partner, and Sissiretta Jones, the first black woman to sing a solo in the White House both lived in the Mission at the turn of the 19th century. The Fountain family has lived in the Excelsior district since the 1920s.
Businesses. Entertainment. Beginning in 1850, black resorts dominated the dance halls of the waterfront area, partially because they offered integrated audiences and performers. Eight jazz clubs built and operated by black entrepreneurs as late as 1920 still stand, 550 Pacific; 553 Pacific, 498 Pacific, 487 Pacific, 463 Pacific, 750 Pacific, 615 and 617 Washington. Torn down was the Colored Entertainers Club at 107 Columbus, a members-only club for black entertainers.
Finance. The first black-owned bank in America was created in the Merchants Exchange Building in the 400 block of California St. in 1857. Henry Collins founded the Savings Fund and Land Association. In that same block, William Alexander Leidesdorff built the city’s first shipping warehouse.
Organizations. Hannibal Lodge No. 1 at 2804 Bush St. dates to 1854. Today’s S.F. African-American Historical Society is the linear descendant of the Athenean Literary Society beginning in 1852 and the African-American Literary Club which met from the 1890s through the 1940s at Bethel A.M.E. Church each week. Today’s Bayview Opera House is descended from the Crispus Attucks Club at Providence Baptist Church, which began organizing Bayview into block clubs in the 1940s.
Retail. The Neighborhood Co-op, a community-owned grocery store which attracted 2,000 members in Bayview in the 1960s was located at Third and Paul Streets.
Professions. Oscar Hudson, the first black to pass the California bar, practiced in his own law firm in the Monadnock Building beginning in 1912.
The team is actively searching for records, family memorabilia and photographs. If you have or find items they may be interested in, don’t hesitate to call 415-240-3537 or e-mail HYPERLINK "mailto:executiveeditor@blackmoney.com" executiveeditor@blackmoney.co
Arcitect Miles Stevens and historian John William Templeton (at first annual PCBH conference last October) have created a draft context statement, Invisible Pioneers, with Dr. Johnetta Richards of San Francisco State, on the heritage of African-Americans in San Francisco. Map, right, shows buildings in the Western Addition.
Feb. 8, 2009 Koret Auditorium San Francisco Public Library, Grove and Larkin Steeets 2-4 p.m.
Although he never set foot in San Francisco, the city was closely linked with the success of President Abraham Lincoln. Some of his key military and political allies hailed from the boom town. The moral force of black and white abolitionists from here helped push him towards emancipation. A sign of the ties are the murals atop the speeches in the Lincoln Memorial, painted by San Francisco artist Jules Guerin. (see above)
