‘Scam Francisco’ coming soon

James-Baldwin-in-‘Take-This-Hammer-1963-film-by-KQED, <strong>‘Scam Francisco’ coming soon</strong>, Culture Currents
“The premise of ‘Take This Hammer’ (the classic 1963 film by KQED following Baldwin as he tours the hoods of San Francisco talking to the ‘guys on the corner’ about the racism that keeps them from working) as Baldwin states early on, is that there is ‘no moral distance, which is to say no distance between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham’ – that the liberal, freethinking city, where Jim Crow held no official sway, was as oppressive and unjust for its Black residents as a legally segregated Southern city that repressed protest by force.” – The New Yorker

by Robert ‘Fleetwood’ Bowden

As a lost mind and lost soul locked in the county jail in San Francisco, I picked up a book entitled “Manchild in the Promised Land,” explaining the migration of African Americans from the South after slavery. So many left the South seeking a better life only to experience industrial racism up North and out West.

Fast forward to the 20th century, the common call from America to African Americans is “Get out the ghetto!” Yes, gentrification is happening all over the country. They’re moving the people of color out of the inner city using all kinds of ploys and tactics. 

In San Francisco, it’s no different. The scam is in full effect. San Francisco has a history of discrimination against not only Blacks but also against its Chinese population. Asian residents, especially Chinese immigrants and their descendants, comprise by far the largest ethnic plurality here.

As far as the largely forgotten history of the African American community in San Francisco, there was a time when San Francisco and the Bay Area had the most successful Black population in the entire country. African Americans came from all over the nation to work in the area’s shipyards and armories during World War II. 

The Fillmore district was among the most prosperous Black neighborhoods in America, with its collection of jazz clubs, fine dining, high-end retail and other Black-owned businesses. It was a beautiful example of what a Black community could do with hard-earned money and the freedom to invest and spend it, but by the end of the 1950s, this had begun to change.

As the wartime industries shuttered, newly unemployed Black San Franciscans found the old discriminatory hiring practices had returned in full, and with rising unemployment and reduced purchasing power to continue investing in it, the Fillmore neighborhood slowly began to slide into poverty.

San Francisco’s response to the urban crisis was not to invest in impoverished communities. Instead, 461 Black-owned businesses and over 4,000 Black families were evicted. Vacant lots created by the Fillmore’s destruction sat empty for years and decades. The result was the exile of San Francisco’s Black population, which in the postwar years had grown to make up as much as 13% of The City. It now stands at just north of 5%, which is the lowest percentage of African American residents in any major American city.

Was it a plan? I truly believe so, and out of this madness and deceitfulness a powerful film project, “Scam Francisco,” has emerged depicting the con game America played and continues to play across America. Stay tuned.

Contact Fleetwood, aka Robert Bowden, at Fleetwood_189@hotmail.com.