Black History

Fillmore Black Community Calls for Donation of Heritage Center

The Fillmore District in San Francisco was known as the “Harlem of the West” during the San Francisco jazz era. The neighborhood was bustling with Black-owned businesses, restaurants and professionals serving thousands of Black customers. The nightclubs featured top-tier talent like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr., and Leona King, among many others.

Published

4 years ago

November 20, 2021

Oakland Post

“San Francisco City leaders have a moral obligation to right the racist wrongs that destroyed that culture and that community and allow the Fillmore Heritage Center to live up to the full meaning of its name,” said Danny Glover, a Hollywood star and Bay Area social justice fixture.

SF native and activist Danny Glover, Black leaders say center should serve the Black community which was ousted from the area by racist programs and policy

By Post Staff

San Francisco native and actor/activist Danny Glover joined local Black leaders Monday to call for the City of San Francisco to donate the mostly vacant, city-owned Fillmore Heritage Center to a nonprofit that would serve the Black community as a form of reparations for the disruption of what used to be a Black, thriving neighborhood.

But by the 1960s, all but a few nightclubs had survived the city’s “urban renewal” initiatives.

“The Fillmore was the vibrant hub of San Francisco’s Black community before it was destroyed by inherently racist programs designed to remove Black families and culture,” Rev. Amos C. Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church and president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, said at a Nov. 15 press conference. “Deeding the Fillmore Heritage Center back to the local Black community is an extremely important first step in righting that immense historic wrong.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has not yet responded to a request for comment by this publication, however ABC7 News has reported lukewarm responses from Breed, who said that the situation is complicated, and much is yet unknown about the prospect of donating the center. “I would like to see the venue become a huge success. I don’t want to continue to see the venue be a financial drain to the city,” Breed said of the site.

“San Francisco City leaders have a moral obligation to right the racist wrongs that destroyed that culture and that community and allow the Fillmore Heritage Center to live up to the full meaning of its name,” said Glover, a Hollywood star and Bay Area social justice fixture. He demands, with the support of the African American Reparations Advisory Committee, that the city deed the property and turn over its operation to a nonprofit group representing the array of Black business, cultural, spiritual and community interests in the city.

“My professional career in the performing arts began with mentoring by the kind of outstanding Black performers who made the Fillmore one of the most important cultural centers in the West,” Glover said.