African Americans of San Francisco

by Adkins, Jan Batiste

• ISBN13: 9780738576190
• ISBN10: 0738576190
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-23
• Publisher: Arcadia Pub

Summary

Beginning in the 1840s, black men and women heard the call to go west, migrating to California in search of gold, independence, freedom, and land to call their own. By the mid-1850s, a lively African American community had taken root in San Francisco. Churches and businesses were established, schools were built, newspapers were published, and aid societies were formed. For the next century, the history of San Francisco's African American community mirrored the nation's slow progress toward integration with triumphs and setbacks depicted in images of schools, churches, protest movements, business successes, and political struggles.

Author Biography

Jan Batiste Adkins, an educator and lecturer, has spent the last five years researching and documenting the history of San Francisco's African American pioneers. Her master's thesis from San Jose State University documented the history of the African American community as reflected in black newspapers of the 1850s through the 1890s. This book is an expansion of that project, for which she has consulted area archives, museums, and libraries, including the California Historical Society, the San Francisco African American Historical Society, the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, San Francisco Public Library History Center, California State Public Library, church and organization archives, and family albums. She has managed to weave a photographic tapestry of the amazing stories and history that began during the early years of the Gold Rush and continue into the present era.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. 6
Introduction	p. 7
1840-1900: San Francisco's Early Black Pioneers	p. 9
1900-1950: War, Migration, Employment Opportunities, and San Francisco's Emerging Black Community	p. 33
1950-1980: Reshaping African American Communities, Leadership, Civil Rights, Students Rights, and Redevelopment	p. 63
1980-Present: After the Turmoil	p. 103
Bibliography	p. 127
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