City Government

OP-ED: As 49ers Move, SF Black Community Gets Short End of Stick

Published

13 years ago

July 16, 2013

Members of the struggling Black community of San Francisco’s BayView Hunters Point have plenty reasons to feel as though they got the “short end of the stick,” when it comes to economic deals that have paved the way for the 49ers to leave the city.

NFL owners loaned the San Francisco 49ers $200 million to leave Candlestick Park, which has been the 49ers official stadium since 1970. Their new home, “LEVI”S Stadium” currently being constructed in Santa Clara, is 35 miles south of the San Francisco.

Then, 49er’s CEO Jed York offered a host city role for Sam Francisco in the team’s bid, to host a Super Bowl contingent, based on San Francisco allowing the team to opt out of its 2015 lease agreement.

Last year, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an option that included an upfront fee of $1 million. The agreement released the team of its 2015 $6 million rent obligation, despite Supervisor Sean Elsbernd claim the team “abandoned” the city.

City officials never consulted with the community about the impact this move would have.

On May, the NFL announced that San Francisco will host the 2016 Super Bowl.

Efforts to improve the blighted area closest to Candlestick Park resulted in decades of broken promises and delays by the 49ers. A general contractor in the area commented, “The team blocked any attempt by the city to do construction.” Allegedly, the team feared the work would interfere with its season activities.

Now that the team has all but left the city, work to improve the area has begun, but who is benefiting?

In a protest at the Candlestick, picketers from Aboriginal Blackman United (ABU) were contained by SFPD at the bottom of the hill during the afternoon’s proceedings. Black town cars chauffeured officials to the event site, as protesters’ cries were drowned out by the music of Miles Davis playing from stage speakers.”

This was the third such recent protest by ABU, a Black community group that claims community Blacks are not being hired as promised. This first phase of a projected 20-year, $8 billion housing and retail project is not funded.

Meanwhile, 49er’s Jed York enthusiastically proclaimed, “25 percent” of the profits from hosting Super Bowl L will go towards the “Fight against poverty.”

But according to one San Francisco resident Terrance Barnes, who isn’t a football fan, “The team took a billion dollar project out of the city and now that it gets to host a Super Bowl, [but] they are concerned about poverty.”

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

4 days ago

July 5, 2026

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”