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Over Half of Black Children in SF Live in Least Healthy Neighborhoods

Published

11 years ago

June 3, 2015

Fifty-seven percent of metropolitan San Francisco’s Black children live in the area’s least healthy neighborhoods for childhood development, according to the recently developed Child Opportunity Index.

Of the country’s 100 largest metro areas, San Francisco has the seventh highest concentration of Black children living in very low opportunity neighborhoods.

In comparison, 44 percent of Hispanic children and just 7 percent of white children live in these same very low-opportunity neighborhoods. A graphic summary of San Francisco’s numbers is available at http://bit.ly/COISanFran.

As part of the diversitydatakids.org project, researchers at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management and the Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity created the index to examine a holistic group of education, health and socioeconomic indicators, including the presence of a quality early childhood education center, the proximity to parks and healthcare facilities, and the housing foreclosure rate, that can identify which neighborhoods within each of the country’s 100 largest metro areas are the most conducive to healthy child development.

“Previously, studies have looked at neighborhood conditions in one or a few areas. This is the first time data on neighborhood resources that matter for children—and where children of different racial and ethnic groups live in relation to those resources—is available for the 100 largest metro areas,” says lead researcher Dr. Dolores Acevedo-Garcia of the Heller School’s Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy.

Approximately 49 million children—or two-thirds of the population under the age of 18 in the United States—live in these 100 communities.

A major theme that emerges from the research is the high concentration of black and Hispanic children who live in the country’s lowest opportunity neighborhoods.

Nationally, 40 percent of black and 32 percent of Hispanic children live in the lowest opportunity neighborhoods within their metro area, compared to just 9 percent of white children.

The index shows considerable variation across America. For example, the proportion of Hispanic children living in very low opportunity neighborhoods ranges from about 10 percent in New Orleans to 57 percent in Boston.

In Albany, 60 percent of the area’s black children live in its lowest opportunity neighborhoods, compared to McAllen, Texas, which is the best at 8 percent.

“Today, nearly half of U.S. children are from racial and ethnic minority groups, compared to only about 15 percent in the mid-1970s,” says Erin Hardy, research director for diversitydatakids.org. “It is critical for our future productivity as a nation that all children have access to neighborhoods with opportunities for healthy development.”

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 8 – 14, 2026

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.