Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco; The Fillmore

If people know anything about this neighborhood. It's probably because of this building. The film auditorium the home of the legends of rock n roll. A few of the kids in the 60s who made the pilgrimage upstairs knew much about the neighborhood would come to school who'd been here before them. The music was the story appeal and that story. Well it's been told. The story happens here too. But it's a little harder to find. You see. It's down here. On street level. Alice why. Are you saying here that selling the film.

In a moment if not only for Janice and Jamie and the Jefferson Airplane played upstate is this whole neighborhood meant something to some people in a way. It was more than a district. It was a we were. The film On The Block. That card that wasn't black was Japanese. And you'd walk the streets looking for partners and it was the way that. Many of the people wrote about the Renaissance in Harlem that was what Fillmore Street. Was locked. In those days. The several restaurants and the collapsing zone itself went back in with a. Afro-American Hotel down here Club Delaware. Everything you know. Because this was a sin class area but I was a boy we development came in and that's why you know. It's a strange thing about this neighborhood. Time and again people in the film have

been told they had to me it was always for their own good. Always for the sake of a better tomorrow. Well tomorrow has come and it's time to take stock because getting here has been one hell of a ride. Michael Anyway that's our story. Just the one nobody likes to tell. About. The prettiest little city. And the world. Funding for the film has been provided by reaching 120 million people in the United States and to our investments. Another 260 million people of different countries on five continents.

We are communications. Neighborhood they provide a sense of community a source of support a place to call home. That's why we're proud to be a part of your neighborhood and the California landscape Union Bank of California. Since 1864 additional funding provided by the Richard and Goldman fund the Bernard Jewish Philanthropies foundation. By these generous contributors. And by contributions from viewers like you. Thank you. Agree on much of this place. The film the film banned the west in addition the Western edition of the film just playing. In the middle of a four square mile level patch just west of downtown.

That's what earned it its original name. The Western EDITION. What if there's one thing people do agree on is that for nearly 40 years this neighborhood was San Francisco's little united nation not by design but by an act of God. The great earthquake of April 19 0 6 left the city and the ruins and the resulting fire burned for three days. Refugee camps springing up in parts bordering one of the few neighborhoods left unscathed the Western Addition. Row upon row of state libertarians stood and touched by the devastation. Built to house one or two families. They were quickly sort of divided into boarding houses for the new residents pouring into the neighborhood.

What it once in a bedroom community was suddenly city center. Within days of this quake City Hall now in ruins relocated to the closest Farah felt left intact. Almost street. The first recount to resume operation ran along Fillmore. Soon San Francisco's finest shops were setting their sights on the bustling streets of the Western Addition at the beginning the Fillmore merchants had visions of Fillmore Street replacing Market Street is a mainstay and for a few years more was the main street of San Francisco. The merchants along for a much chipped in to build a set of 14 arches stretching more than a mile for each quarter. There's four arches coming from one side of the street to the other and they're always lit up every single night like white lights the big lights were beaming all over the place. Yes and beautiful sight.

Fillmore Street would become the meeting ground for some 55. Residents who found themselves drawn together into one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country the Fillmore in those years was about the closest to a large Jewish neighborhood that San Francisco ever had. We had three center gods. We had a cluster of Jewish restaurants. We had Jewish merchants. You knew the butcher your mother would go into the butcher shop and say hold Dave darling 10:43 Steiner were you who even offers family living you could possibly hear either of you who would be practicing the violin or you could hear you alter or have so by sisters practicing the piano. We had different ethnic mixes and that was reflected in the makeup of my school crisis and we didn't have any racial problems so we

had Irish. We had Russians we had white children Chinese children Japanese children you know the colored population. We were all there we were small and number. I'm surprised to hear that there was a black community because you know we have very few in school you could walk down market freedom Blakely's you look at and the last one. Fewer than one percent of the city's residents were African-Americans. But those who were migrated into the West in addition alongside the Filipinos the Jews the Mexicans. Not the San Francisco was colorblind. Far from it. Many men are just had a hard time finding any place to live. But in this neighborhood for a long while race didn't seem to matter much. EASTOE Fillmore Street was a Japanese settlement must have been at least five six thousand Japanese-Americans living within this area. He had passed them on the Street the Dow down to greet you.

I was always taught. That when you. Met a first generation if you like always. Come into your life. Naresh Morimoto spent her childhood on Fillmore Street. Her parents were both born in Japan operated a dry cleaning store and the family lived upstairs in a rented flat. To Morimoto family for generations has been in the same house on Fillmore Street just 917 on the edge of what became known as new home market Japan down. My parents didn't want us to forget that we were Japanese. So for us to learn Japanese custom because of American custom you can pick it up. But Japanese custom of the real nitty gritty that you have to learn it from them. My father had this bookstore that saw nothing but Demi's books but

together there and play cards or read books were always poor because nobody bought any books. They just stood there and read the books and went home. It was a kind of isolated community. We didn't have a barrier or a business invisible wall that we always seem to stay within. We had a regular hotdog a hamburger shops and nothing was different other than American kids but we were all Asian kids. It's a phenomenon of how in the think community comes into neighborhoods and makes it all of a sudden a whole much AJ town you know shoe store candy store drugstore churches anger all Scouse And you know activities for the young nieces in terms of sports the environment for Asian Japanese-Americans was not the most welcoming. You know. Atmosphere for these folks you know. It's amazing that within that to me is just so such a strong desire. To adopt this country. Because the bottom

line is America is good. How did you hear about it. What kind of notification did you get me to move to relocate. That war had broken out. I don't I don't think historically what happened was I put it. I put it back at me. I don't want to remember it and that's something you know one member. Now. It's a period where we would try to wash away from my memory. And. That's treason. I don't recall too much of what really happened. I mean.

I. Can recall but you know I just. Don't want to really remember I guess. Pearl Harbor here. I can remember the Japanese people they released of course you very seldom see them on the street. And there was a lot of resentment. My husband and I had a contract with Captain Sisko Presidio. And we were doing all the cleaning of the uniforms the people going by. Then take him out. They didn't like it. They called dirty Japs. Yeah I remember that distinctly. Personally I had. A high regard for the Japanese community that existed in the Fillmore area. Because. They were industrious. They were clean. They were honorable. And if you did business with them you didn't have to be afraid that

you would be misled. But there was some apprehension. And that's why. I think. Prompted Roosevelt to make this fiction notice and take him over to. Concentration camps. I remember all those books and. Everything at the go. Never been anybody else. We had to tell everybody

everything and everything. I remember the awful feeling when they disappeared. It was as if it happened overnight. Perhaps because of the nature of the Japanese community their pride that they internalize they had been given short notice within. One day they were there and the next and they were. Has the Japanese move out an African-American vent immediately to the

Japanese community. I rub your to the 60s 1942 and the train was loaded with people with paper bags and cardboard boxes a one way ticket to California. They were the people who were coming out to man the war industry. They're coming from Louisiana large numbers are coming from the state of Texas to come in from Arkansas and Oklahoma and Mississippi. My aunt came to San Francisco in nineteen forty three as she went to work immediately and the defense plans to came into her husband came just that her mother sister died. On the. Tens of thousands of people pouring into the city every single month you have thousands of African-Americans pouring into the city

every single time. Good wages and that was a bit of the work of the week of the black leather worker in one of the American $100 a month. This migration is taking place against the backdrop of 12 years of economic depression. And it really doesn't take much to get people on the road when they find out that the shipyards would be paying extremely high wages. That. A part which were hard to come by blacks move into the building into the room or going into apartments the Japanese left. You had no choice. Real estate interests would show you. Properties and rentals in that area. And only in that area knew were not welcome in or else. They quickly over expand the amount of available housing and

so what happens interestingly is the four five block area which had been the hub of the black community begins to expand. There was a premium on housing. People doubled up tripled up. And do you know any in his face that you could turn into a sleeping area. They did that have read stories of people literally sleeping in shifts in apartments buying or renting beds in chairs for eight hours I know one guy rated. As a living face for God rather than. Yes. Yes we're big enough to have a drawer in the bag of clothes and big drawer. But anyway there was a section in the kitchen for every single couple. And they would cook at different times or they would serve their meals at different times. More free crowded because of the war workers so you could walk in the middle of the street.

There's a hundred dollars to hand out your pocket and nobody would touch you. Be good everybody is making money. Black migrants don't generally check their culture at the rural station they bring it with them. They came with a tremendous amount of resources. My uncle for example was a carpenter. One was a mechanic. Michael's brother was a barber. On Saturday mornings they line up get in there and then on Sunday after church people came to visit to see when you heard from home it was a social place. They were a building community. Which. Was the. Little. Village. You see an increase in the number of black churches in San Francisco for the first time. The main organization that argument of course is the church. Looks at what makes a bad mistake. It's a very powerful powerful force.

My dad was a minister. He bought. A church which had been vacated by the Japanese community. That would seat about 100 people. We had less than a hundred limps. Between. 42 and 43. The congregation exploded from maybe a hundred. For well over a thousand. The. 45 some 30000 African-Americans were living in San Francisco. The workforce that I was starting to feel that they had made a difference in the war and that the Fillmore was becoming their own home. While a celebration of the New York Times will. Never be bored. When a crowd like this only one. Million people. Remembering one.

Of the most devastating. I didn't feel anything against anyone I just wanted to get back to come back in their face. Yeah they were and they all knew they were right. No it's still not. The only place I feel comfortable. And there was a nice feeling. That the feeling that the war was so. They're forgetting that part of their life. That it so-called didn't exist and so they could start all over again back to where they. Where they were when they left. The journey to the Fillmore district wasn't easy. The dry cleaning shop had been turned into a warehouse.

Upstate as their beloved home was occupied by strangers. But through persistence and a bit of luck the Morimoto family did what you knew coming out of the camps. They returned to the home they had left. And stayed. He paid only $10000 for this bill and my husband every Eliza to work after them. And on Sundays for this hardwood flooring. So I take great pride in this house. They always say it's to be kept so that. Each one are and wife in the family. Has. A roof over their head. This house is going to stay here it's not going anywhere to survive how many are not going anywhere. You know I think that presents kind of a symbolic way of my grandmother. You know I don't plan on her going anywhere for a

long time yet. But the neighborhood the Morimoto has returned to was far different from the one they'd left through more streets framed and been melted down for scrap during the war. The old Victorian was strained to the breaking point from overcrowding. Many of the residents out of work thousands upon thousands of blacks as government defense industry employment could not find comparable employment in terms of wages and in many cases could not find employment at all. This is complicated by the fact that public officials felt that these migrants would return home study said Mr. Freeman. How long do you think these kind of people are going to be here. And yes that's

right. We don't need a passport to come in here with us. But even if it was time to leave the Fillmore behind. It became more fashionable to move to other areas. There were huge tracks of land that were being converted into developments. After all the houses in the West in addition were all the houses and the plumbing and they had been around for a while. A lot of the shops kind of closed up. Some of the stores down there because they were just seeing people the white people was moving out and there's nobody left there. There were people there of course San Francisco's first large black community but there they were along with the old houses and the bad plumbing and the unemployment.

Newspaper started calling the Fillmore a slum and a cry was heard that echoed across ppl from North America. Fix our city. The answer came in to me promising work. Urban renewal. The Senate banking and currency Committee report the Housing Act of 1949 providing for slum clearance for the construction of eight hundred and ten thousand new low end housing units by 90 with a stroke of a pen. There was money to rebuild cities in San Francisco. City planners drew a big red box around the western edition and called it priority number one. They even wrote a brochure for the new San Francisco plan for better living replaces the dilapidation in disorder of more than half a century of the disreputable joints. The so-called smoke shops the hotels and hangouts known to the police. The future of this once valuable property will be dark and uncertain until the old structures can be scrapped and attractive

new buildings adapted to modern needs can be built on the land. The film oer become one of the largest urban renewal projects in the West affecting nearly 20000 residents over two square miles. But at its beginning nobody could possibly know what it would do to the residents of the West in addition some of them were. Robin Goodman a physician a newspaper publisher was emerging as a spokesman for the new community. He argued for neighborhood input into the city's plans and experiences toward minorities he said that if we don't start I would write we might not end up right. There was certainly an awareness that there were slums or blighted communities within the Western education black leaders to talk about this but there's no sense of how this concept is really going to affect. I don't think anyone could conceptualize what it's really going to mean down the road.

Down the road was a long way away. Because for more than a decade plans for the neighborhood stagnated in the mire of politics and paper shuffling. It would be a crucial delay because in that time the neighborhood tossed together by the war would start tend to look at first to put down roots. I was born in 1947 in a community called the Fillmore just plain ole feelings. OK we didn't have nothing. We were happy and I love the feel well things I recall its just knowing so many people up and down the community the houses were beautiful look like gingerbread houses to me at the time. You can imagine the kid from a place like me. Seeing these incredible. Structures the arguments around the ceiling. And the doors and the post as you entered the building.

Coming here. My brother had another world. Sit on my front stairs you know walk down a street sing and sing on the way to sing and everywhere. You walk down different doorways you started here throughout the afternoon. These guys are in there man and they're singing in this doorway because the marble floor gives a better sound effect off of the word wall in their country. See the radio movie theaters all within five or six blocks of each other. The Uptown temple just blocks and blocks of nothing but nice stores there was a roller skating rink. There was a bowling alley. I still recall whites who would never come down to the field coming on Friday and Saturday night. I started to like it. I started to get there was an explosion of restaurants

shops and national nightclubs and bars. The book at the Washington Hotel had a celebrity Ella Fitzgerald appeared there. The greats Lou Rawls was not a star then but he was well on the air. Dinah Washington which will bear Carmen McRae from our street became Swing Street was more jazz you know I mean you might see there you know just have another you know whatever they have. There were certain areas where the bars and restaurants. Well they wouldn't serve you. They're well aware of those who live around here so we just go to those places. We were limited to the. Western editions from our system. They didn't hire you at Easter in the seventies there were riots and find.

Whatever amount of booze you want to gamble with start like 5 o'clock on Friday and it would go 24 hours a day. You only handle cash. Every Monday. Alcohol would have a. Bag of money that he would take to the bank have earned it. Unless he got drunk. And got in the game and self-destruct lay him out of the bag. People get depressed. I mean like. Stacy out in shoes with white stream shells that had been highly cleaned up with Clorox to make sure the strings and the stitches could be sharp very well-polished you would see great diamond stick and you would see satin ties long coats you'd see great looking jewelry on the women for a cold say there's no such thing as an endangered species. They were on the people. In the film that was the best days. Now we just how can a close and all kind

of nice restaurants are just seen. That's when it really developed. Musicians were coming to town. That's what we're doing so well and I get to work come on the ground a bop city. So all of a sudden the heart of J town. Is this jazz club go bop city and it doesn't come alive until after 2 am. I want to box it in most every weekend that I was working there not that I was working in Richmond. I get a ride that said it's going to go there Friday Saturday and you never knew who you would see on the bandstand. I've gone and there are nights when Oscar Peterson was playing a girl Grano was playing Billie Holiday was singing. So if you were really hip in this community you try to sneak house and stand underneath jumbles about 2:00 a.m. and be able to hear all the jazz that was going on in the club until 6:00 a.m. and then everybody left and they would. Go there with their musical boxing gloves on. You know you have to because practically every band they have some young hot shots who want to play

because when they do their regular performance genres is sort of structured and so we do a chance to stretch out. I was playing many times with my heroes right away that's what was blowing my mind because I never knew who I was going to play with. And. I got to know I play and play with people like Paul Gonzales out of XP. It is the first person who played so much saxophone I actually think people swallowed that. But. He just absolutely killed me. You know I never heard anybody. Like that on that level. I was 17. And then. There was my input. And it was time for me to play. There were these three things that are unspeakable thrill so it's like if people love

art and they love music. I think of what it does to the artist. It's an operable. There's jurors. Who feel more James Hataway of her bring in the people. That's what. Kept her cry that was important. That's why it was vital. I could see the servants as cool as an oasis of music. There was a tremendous sense of pride in this community where most of the black businesses where most of the black professionals lived and operated I mean this was their community Harlem. This had to be the closest thing. To Harlem. It felt good and it was a great great time. By the late 50s the film for jazz lovers at least was on the map but in mad George Christopher's office it was on a very different map.

How can you condone a slum area. The Fillmore area was just a rapid David but we didn't want to leave it go for another two or three years or four years because then it would become an area that would be impossible to restore. It had been more than a decade since the area had been targeted for renewal. And though the Redevelopment Agency had taken little action in the neighborhood the label of slum had stuck. Now once an agency comes in and says this is an area it's blighted Well if you own a house or a landlord. But a whole lot of money into that because it's blighted and something's going to happen here and you're just going to kind of sit around and wait and see what happens. And the film some 90 percent of the Billings were not owned by absentee landlords with no incentive to keep up the properties they were down while chronic under employment sent the crime rate up. There may have been a nightlife. But word on the street was the Fillmore was a bad neighborhood.

Many times the cab drivers return discourage tourists from coming onto it he would claim that it was a slum when you get your throat cut if you went out there. Where people also sat under their breaths anyway. Was that it was a black neighborhood. For that matter. The city was about to demonstrate not to get federal money for the renewal. City Hall had to prove there was blight and San Francisco piece neighborhood was assigned penalty points based on conditions considered undesirable dilapidation traffic accidents. Tuberculosis. And near the bottom of the list. Non white population. I believe that people felt that African-Americans equal blight the Western edition was targeted to a large extent because there was a very very strong vital African-American community. And I don't think that we can discount the issue of race here.

It was developed to get rid of just blacks and simplicity. It was get it. I think that it was to get rid of anybody in the way of using that piece of property is now in the middle of town for a higher purpose. Goodness I don't know of anybody who ever told me that they were trying to get rid of the blacks because the black community has always been a very. Strong community in the city. I think they saw land and an opportunity to get land and they had to clear the land in the only way to clear the land was to use the tools of government to achieve that goal. The tools of government were in the hands of the redevelopment agency but it was still mired in bureaucratic bungling. Its harshest critic was a federal government big way. Justin Herman an urban planner himself was the ranking bureaucrat sent from Washington to oversee urban renewal in the West. He held the purse strings for San Francisco's redevelopment and he was disgusted with its

stagnation. He felt that the city at that time did not have strong personnel that knew what the program entailed. So one day I convinced myself that I should call Herman. I said to him there's only one solution for this matter. He said what. He says you quit your job with the federal government you work for the city. Oh my God he said how can I do that. I said if you work for the city and you solve this matter which I think you will your name will will be of lasting moment in our city. Whereas now your little. Secretary you have a new job in the federal government when you go you'll be a forgotten issue won't you. Two days later he says OK. I'll take the job. Justin Herman would preside over San Francisco's redevelopment for 12 years by the end of his tenure. The city would be transformed and he would be at the center of a wrenching controversy over power money and race. But at the outset he embarked on a fervent

mission making the city better for everyone. Well Justin was quite a man quite a man most unusual felt very bright and a dream of a visionary. And one of the two or three best reverend or. Directors in the country quite frankly because of his ability to see a vision for what Bruno could do what he did not understand the downsides of it in terms of its impact on people. He was a little on the egotistic side but I guess you could call it self respect. And he had that. And he took pride in the fact that he was able to get certain things done. His first priority was not the Fillmore but it became produce market smack in the middle of downtown. With astonishing speed. He and Mr. Christopher brokered a deal to move the produce vendors clear the land and construct a gleaming set of luxury apartments and offices.

The Golden Gate way was a ribbon renewal at its most glorious swift prosperous and uncontroversial. No one thought the film should be any different. Justin Herman was very much a believer in the big project the big project which man tear it all down and start over. What Herman envision for the film was breathtaking. He championed the plan for a Western edition project a one which had been adopted three years earlier and took it further. The heart of old Japan town would give way to a major trade center and a hotel financed by Japanese and I wind banks next to it an underground Boulevard would replace old Geary Street whisking commuters into downtown bypassing the bottleneck of the Fillmore to make way there was some 100 acres of aging Victorians to deal with. The only problem was. People lived in them.

There was no intention of involving them in the process. No intention of saving the neighborhood for them just get them out of there. After years of rumor delay and inaction the residents found themselves unprepared for the reality of Herman's efficient plant. Some six thousand people lived in the pathway of phase a one. Most were African-American. But there were whites and a smattering of resettle Japanese. Less than 20 years after Pearl Harbor residents of the West in addition were again told by the government they had to leave. Residents were given $50 and moving expenses 25 if they lived on a ground floor. For homeowners the news came first in letters than in visits from agency personnel bearing Settlement Office. Not a single house was deemed worth saving among the homeowners against the bad news was Carol Ogilvie's family my aunt and uncle had spent from 1943 to 1950 with their eyes on the

prize of owning property and a very good section of the Western Addition where would be our community our culture our people our church our clubs. They offered us I think it was $11000 said no or something. And then I went down and talked and raised 11:05 I believed. Then the service papers that we had a good hour and then to be told that now you need to relocate. That's discouraging. But now where do we go. The agency had no relocation plan. Residents scrambled to find new housing in the already tight market. You use a kind of mall that scared you to know what to do. Some like our movie though designed saw a way to move up in the world and away from the film.

When they gave her that lemon forcing her to sell her property she just made lemonade out of it. My. Aunt was. Very upset. That she could not have made the decision to move when she wanted to do it. After living there for us 70 80 years or so and then somebody comes along and say you gotta get out and you're going to take this amount of money and you had no say in the tall. The concept of eminent domain which is an old concept in the Constitution actually the government has a right to go in and take property forcibly with compensation. But regardless of what the owner wishes to sell the property must sell it to the government in effect in order to accomplish some kind of a public purpose. They took a house fell to the maker.

Just paved over and. There was a long period of time before the property was demolished. And until the property was actually level. What drives. Every morning. Come back and park in front of the property and maybe read the newspaper. They just did not go away. You've got to understand that as I looked on the street it was nothing but Victorians. And at one point there was a bulldozer there and by the time he came back from school. The housing. No. One was in full swing. No longer just a plan but a physical force. Stone residents watched as Garry street disappeared to be reborn

as Geary Blvd. Highway six lanes wide and a mile long. It's like a Mason-Dixon. The Geary cord or going from downtown San Francisco all the way out to the Richmond District in fact created a north south divide in Word that separated the black community from what was North and Pacific Heights. And this is the sort of thing that we developed that kept nerves and allowed to happen. Unfortunately it's very much a borderline between. Black and white. I think the Japanese for kind of that gray area in the middle. With into you the heart of the Fillmore had been cleared. And his place rose to new Japan Trade Center and high rise apartments. Out pricing most of the former residents. Justin Herman himself later I admitted that of the 4000 households displaced in phase a one only one family moved back in.

Is a part of my redevelopment. When we visited our room there was not a negro because the Japanese place downtown being put down. That's right I think it was reclaiming it is gravity and it was after that by the time James Baldwin visited the Fillmore the black middle class was leaving for the suburbs both by choice and by force. The Fillmore even with some brand new housing projects was in danger of becoming what nobody had Dad name it before. I get oh. My God you know all the models on the street all the drug addicts on the street and they all of Mary Rogers a mother of 12 children moved into the neighborhood and 1965 and they kind of had a lot of respect for

me because when I see my kids I got and I wouldn't and I paddling back around this corner. So when they would stand out there that's if I get a lead on watching that go back round the corner even after phase a one there was still some 30000 Fillmore residents like Mary Rogers who didn't like the worsening conditions they saw. Neither did Justin Herman. He offered a solution a two. SAN FRANCISCO A lovely city is bursting at the seams must give way to United and and daring masterplan that's been in the plan under which the sub standard aims are to be replaced by modern housing and business centers causes problems beyond the multi-million dollar financing. Numbers of people of low income residential developments could fill up the paint wasn't

dry on the new Japan Trade Center when Justin Herman announced the ambitious plan. Phase 8 2 was massive it would target some 60 square blocks affecting more than 13000 residents. This time they were skeptical. I've lived here all of my life. I write to you. I've read it and I'm still working it. Yet I don't know how much longer I'll be here. But nevertheless I have no intention that it will come down my way baby. I'll be there in his wheelchair and you have a hell of a good time. People had experienced a war and they knew about it and when they come along these homeowners were up in arms. I refused to be said that because I'm glad I got to go somewhere else and I decided I won I won going away already. There was no community organisation but there were a bunch of concerned people. They were having one of the

Pearlington meeting that you except. That I mean do that because the price to you would mean you got to accept it. I don't approve of that. I was sitting there I had never open my mouth in public in my life. And all of a sudden as I listen to them and listen to the complaint the things that were down in their guts were hurting them that they were angry about. I got up and began to speak right out of a clear blue sky. They like the way I spoke. And everywhere we went from then on we want Hannibal to be our spokesman. Neighborhood activism was still a new idea in 1966 but encouraged by progressive ministers mostly white. However Williams a recovering alcoholic and self-described ne'er do well and found a calling. We promise you that we will be back and we will see you then we can get the

homeowners group the welfare rights group the people that were organizing against the schools. Any group that would join our group of groups you know they call themselves Waco the Weston edition community organization. Now when the redevelopment agency you know as a branch of government becomes you know you know our area then I say that things have reached a stage where I guess Mr. Ray Some might say Oh they probably less crazy. They want to say yes can I. Are you sure we've found that down time was having a major concern in the house and kept saying the lest in addition we each call five of 10 people and said meet us in the morning at 10 o'clock. Well and we turned out two or three hundred people you know demanded a say in the planning of day to insisting that residents should have a right to remain in the

neighborhood and no cost replacement housing built to their needs. The trouble was they didn't have any rights as far as the law was concerned redevelopment was a contract between the federal government and the city. People were helpless against the power of the redevelopment agency and somehow the city and county of San Francisco had given just tremendous power. To do whatever he wanted to in this community. The notion of citizen participation was very very it was really nothing much to people like Justin Herman he wanted to be the planner he didn't want those folks down there to interfere. We didn't know who the devil was but we knew who Justin Herman was and that was the devil for us. Someone found the plans for aid to included plenty of low cost and middle income housing and insisted they move forward.

16 units of family housing prices rising because it is much lower on the market right ordinarily. Right well those are just a woman's words and he is going to keep talking and he keeps talking and he's going to keep grinding little people. And when he stops talking and starts listening. Maybe some of this will make some sun since that's all said the agency would try to impress people that they could come back to the area. But there were problems for that one is there was an enormous lead time between when people were displaced and when the new housing was up there. Years and years in many cases. Secondly the housing that got put up was usually not of the same type much larger buildings. And more expensive. So it was kind of a false promise that was put out there that we're doing it so that you can come back just didn't work out that way. Frustrated by the ongoing demolition we call to direct action.

Oh yeah. We join hands and say and say you know. Well tell you what we did. They opened this project which was supposed to be this great boon to the black community. We couldn't afford it. And we looked at it and we said this is a sane project this thing as something to benefit poor black people when it's just the opposite. So we're going to stop it. We went to the hardware store. I personally purchased a padlock and I padlocked we padlocked that gate and then we stood in front of it and said This project is closed by the people. We stood against the police people. We stood against a threat over a recess we stood there and we said we're not. Both Herman and his staff were extraordinarily arrogant about all of

this. He hated people who were trying to involve themselves or mess up with his empire because he really wasn't an empire builder. Privately called the Waco protesters Puritans and their supporters the Bleeding Heart Club. But their tactics were making new news and beginning to embarrass the agency and began recruiting community members who might help him win support in the neighborhood. He found a candidate and Wilbur Hamilton son of a Western Addition preacher and energetic City Commissioner Hamilton could bring credibility to the agency. If Herman could woo him understand what he did was he created a circumstance where the whole conference room or the agency at a public meeting was filled with African-Americans from the west in addition and he threw down the gauntlet took some kind of totally inane and Constable position and I was only quickly at the height of that.

Justin bellowed at me. Well he stood up in his chair and said Well if you're so damned dissatisfied with what's going on why don't you come out to the Western nation and run the program. I don't have to think a lot about that. So when you got a deal. And Justin's became the director for a two I really felt highly motivated to do it because I saw the opportunity to do some things that could only be done from the inside. We've anybody who went to work for the agency was the enemy. It's an interesting point because. The agency started out with practically no black employees. And the longer we fought them and the harder we fought them the more blacks they hired.

But the one thing that qualified them in just in Herman's eyes was they had nothing to do with us. Integrated or not. The agency continued to acquire and demolish property to make room for new housing will buy Hamilton himself had to oversee the destruction of an old church street. Church. His father had been. To Hamilton and to him and it was all for the larger good. Bottom line Justin was committed to the purpose and mission of the redevelopment plan as it had been approved by the board because he believed that it was in the best interest long term of the community and the city. It kind of. But what can we do anything about. Well right now we have until we are

cooperating in the shaping of our own destinies. You think it was. The flood damage in the end. And if we're not participants in the plans if we can't see. That we. Believe that. We still haven't got the dignity and self-respect that it gets the people to rise up and the people will never. Attack. Waco filed a federal lawsuit. It was a long shot. They hope to catch the agency violating Federal Housing Law and shut off its money. Hammond was baffled that residents would want to delay improvements to their own community. He remarked politicalization attorney can do nothing into social freedom. We can't. Just getting a judge to hear their case would be unprecedented. Up to that point community residents did not even have the legal right to impose redevelop. When. The decision came it was a stomach that not only did we so on but we

won. We got this federal injunction which lasted until the Redevelopment Agency signed a contract with us a little Waco this ridiculous irritant that bothered them. Arbitrary actions were over people had to be consulted father first time in U.S. history residence had won the right to participate and the renewal of their community. But Justin Herman It was a bitter pill. I can't tell you exactly where Waco stands I think Waco stands wherever it can find a chink in the armor of the community or of the redevelopment agency. It sure found wonders in the federal for this system. This is the kind of victory that the country can be proud of because this victory was achieved without throwing bricks without throwing fire bombs and without creating havoc in our community.

I rather think it might be a good idea if we forgot the mistakes of the past. And there isn't any doubt that mistakes have been made. And let's get down to what it is that we want to do from here on in. The lawsuits. San Francisco redevelopment right at least a change of attitude. A community panel now had to review plans. Churches and unions became partners with the city. The new housing projects and instead of bulldozing old Victorians the agency looked for another solution. We can preserve housing stock a whole lot easier than we can create it. So we got into the Victorians. Those were the best show in town. The other cut wires man after these houses they put them on these things and it was a crackup to

watch the redevelopment staff these guys mess up you know like a lot go out into the street. You know Paul the neighborhood was being real range. But the central idea of clearing a whole city blocks for new developments never changed. Just another remark you know little popular group was going to put together a multimillion dollar project. They aren't going to stop one even this process this juggernaut the steamroller was already in motion and there was very little that could have been done about it you could not stop that. There's no community could stop it. The Waco lawsuit would affect the way an entire nation came to think of residential rights for the neighborhood it meant to save it seemed to have come too late. OK. Back in the 60s when you tell us would you come back this year this is our problem so I know you know about it. Tell me that yes there is a certificate of preference. So many business

people have moved out of the area. If you move back once you rebuild it. This is our certificate of you know preference and we have to come back. We're still taking the 20 years so we did decide to come back. You couldn't afford it. I'm just nervous. You know good. Momento. For us. That's our promissary note. There were thousands of certificates like the Chicago barbershops and tiling residents and businesses to return to the Fillmore once it was rebuilt. The certificates were the spoils of a hard won community victory at that moment. No one knew that they would eventually be considered phantom certificates. By the time they were issued large tracts of land had already been cleared in the West in addition and ten thousand people it moved out to make way for major housing projects. They demolished.

In the land's state faith and for years. Years. The churches began to lose population. The black businesses were totally destroyed. Totally destroyed their team and the world. Five Americans virtually ceased to exist in San Francisco. A lot of the clubs are just dying you know what I mean. Moneys was getting funding. They just. Closed. But city was open but the five of us got. Inspiration is gone. The music is gone. Of all the certificates allowing for more businesses to return 96 percent. When you say I remember clearly when it

started to get dark and desolate and empty and abandoned and then the board started going up then it started to really look like crap and it started to fall into what I call a little deterrence system. San Francisco had fairly serious racial problems and that came home in a very real way. In 1066 when San Francisco had its first race riot. Was like a spark by. Killing. A black teenager and. White by a white policeman. A community exploded. Are you. Fighting spread from the highest point to the Fillmore district and almost overnight you could see a change. Many of the storefronts particularly those owned by whites were destroyed. The National Guard was ultimately called. Yeah. There was a time for not just in the film but all over

America. War zone assassination. Poverty racism people who'd been locked out and fooled with it. We're fed up. They stood on the rubble of the neighborhood and scream. They got married and then jumped on it. We were going to be on shots fired. It's. Just. Gather the film may not have burned like Watson knew it. But the range ran just as hot. Words us. Directed it. And saw it was done in a routine Redevelopment Agency hearing in 1971. Justin Herman came face to face with the anger and hurt of the community. He had worked 12 years to transform the next month. He died of a heart attack at the time of his

death. Few people would have remembered an early warning under just a year and Germans 10 years in San Francisco without adequate housing for the poor. This prophet said critics will rightly condemn urban renewal as a land grab for the rich and a heartless push out for the poor and non-whites. The speaker was Justin Herman. Sadly. Even with the victories that we won I saw us gradually lose. I think that we slowed the agency down. We altered some of their process but in the end urban renewal. Performed. Pretty much what we feared that it would. Urban

renewal became black removal. It looks as if an atomic bomb has been blasted and this is ground zero. Why. Give in to the situation where sometimes your mood is great. And everything is overcast. You could write a film with all of these shelters all these buildings. Just. Lined all the way up. And boarded up. Just the way it does look and the only spots of people. Were people who

were a bozo. You would seek. The Hondurans junkies and. Prostitutes. See more policemen and you would see steel doors or burglar bars on windows. The more dangerous the neighborhood became the next city trying to develop. The prime property. The Fillmore Center nine acres in the heart of the neighborhood. Appearance was bombed out. Another has happened. Well the reason that was that way quite frankly was the insistence on my part and that of the commissions that that was going to be an opportunity for African-Americans from the west in addition to participate in the redevelopment of the area. And so we had three different attempts which failed. I invested a lot of money lots of times and I'm certain that if we had been

selected we could not have secured the finance and the financing institutions were not buying it. That is they were very apprehensive about testing that kind of money. The M.O. When you want to restore. African-Americans. As banks and turn their backs on the neighborhood. The Fillmore center lay vacant for more than a decade. Right. And many of the guys that I grew up with got strung out on drugs and almost without exception most of them did not get to see their 40th birthday. What was missing in the whole equation were jobs was the structure of work and the incredible importance of economic development and economic opportunity.

I had a great you know soup that I refer to as my funeral suit that I would always keep dry clean and ready because within about a two month period of time I remembered going to three funerals. I think it is not insignificant. Born out of this particular Jonestown in 1972 a progressive preacher named Jim Jones leased an abandoned synagogue next to the Fillmore auditoriums and started a ministry for the urban poor of the Western Addition. That temple was right at Geary. Then filled. The ground zero of what happened with the redevelopment area of the Fillmore district. And he turned it into a community that needed to have a sense of belonging for people to be able to come together.

People who were broken people were credible or incredible. I recall even my own mother at one instance having gone to a People's Temple service and coming home telling me about this wonderful man named John. People were desperate for solutions people who needed. Something to follow. Jim Jones was another solution he was somebody fellow. And so the notion of leaving Fillmore and going to Guyana and building a new route was probably very attractive to these hundreds and hundreds of people. And dozens and dozens of families. Most of these people came right from the former district.

In November 1970 more than 900 people many of them Fillmore residents died in Guyana. Victims of murder and suicide. Their bodies were returned and buried in Oakland. Eleven years later the temple they left behind in the Fillmore damaged by fire and earthquake was demolished by a bulldozer. Oh.

You. Were going to be having breakfast for the homeless and we need to be our brothers keeper. And that's what is money at this agency is about housing for people and it's not for profits. But it gets a house and get it straight. Well Mary was and I know this when we met her. You know it wasn't as though we made in the activists. You know what if we'll be OK. When I walk the street with Mary Rogers this is these four guys one they all know Mary you know and they have some affection for. Them like. The fact that she is there gives them something community that they can still hold on to. Mary's the

community. If you didn't just change I think it was destroyed it was devastated as an African-American community as a an important African-American community. We have been dispersed. Just like the Jews were. You are. The. Key to enter. And another part of the film are. The new seeing. The sunset. And Nile to younger generations gathered from homes all over the region to remember the day the president signed the order to send Japanese Americans to relocation camps. There is a very important d'Amour physical community that we could offer was of.

Japan to a new home which he does were. Actually through and. Only a small percentage of Japanese Americans lives in Japan down anymore. Even with all the changes the old neighborhood still. Back. It's still our little niche in town Francisco. There are so many traditions lost through the years that we're trying to get some of those things back. And I'm actually going to be counted and the chair was hired and. It gives me a chance to. Learn my brother's history. Going back to the Japanese down. It reminds me of my past. If everybody thought they had.

I think. It takes a long time for a culture or a civilization to develop. What I saw was happening and that seven year period or in that 10 year period it was remarkable. But to have it at its tenderest point haven't destroyed and disseminated makes it very painful. It's hard to recreate community consciously. It sort of comes up almost of its own forces and it's very easy to destroy. And so much of urban renewal did consciously destroy community and neighborhoods. One of the things that you recognize in redevelopment is the Humpty Dumpty notion you know Humpty Dumpty had a big fall and nobody put back together. Once you've taken apart a community it

never comes back together again. This is the center and right now we're in the Fillmore spread over over 900 acres we have over 11 hundred apartments. The city has become universal in every sense of the word. And we're never going back. So one can lament about the change in who lives where. But you can do absolutely nothing about it. One of the advantages that our residents enjoy most is club one here at Fillmore. We have a five lane lab. They have a cardio theater. We have five large screen TVs. The city has been transforming very rapidly. Now being a city that is not for poor people it's still city very much with a racially mixed population although I believe it is the only major US city that is actually losing black population both numerically and its proportion. This is sad I think because I think any city should have a much greater mixture than is seems to be the case occurring here in San Francisco.

This particular apartment is one of our penthouse apartments. The price range on this apartment is about 16 to $700 a month. If you didn't want to Penthouse gentrification is in fact occurring. There is no question about that. We live in very very prosperous economic times. It's been more than 50 years since the neighborhood was first called Islam. At last the kind of prosperity envisioned long ago by City Hall seems to be taking hold. And most bias anyway. But as the Redevelopment Agency closes out its projects in the West in addition it is giving one final nod to what once was. Among its last efforts here is the creation of a Jazz Preservation District in the heart of the old film. One of the key properties is being developed right by Charles Collins. We look at the Fillmore and it's a very rich history and jazz

music blues hip hop bebop R&B soul. And we want to reclaim our history if it happens it will happen on a totally different level I don't think it will. It certainly can't be the way it was we're not there anymore. Come on. What are we doing in the West in addition now is frankly added and additional work traction to San Francisco. It's not so much that we are restoring the original African-American community. That. To live here. Yes I do. I. Wish I could have it like it was many years ago.

But I know that the world moves on and unless you move on with the world you are in for a rude awakening. There will be some of the old flavor leave Fillmore Auditorium will be there forever. The Chicago barber shop. Where I could be here could be there forever. It is an institution. We have got to cross the street in that one down this block of that. I would never come back. You know I won't come back. You'll be here but now. Welcome back. But the flavor is gone rather circle no more. Maybe somewhere but right now you begin the day by day. He would if he would have a weekend. The music history of the film.

And explore the neighborhood. The story of the hundred for your copy. Funding for the film has been provided by

the United States. Neighborhood. They provide a community source of support. That's why we're proud to be a part of your neighborhood and the California landscape Union Bank of California for. Additional funding provided by the Richard Goldman fund the Bernard Jewish Philanthropies foundation. Contributors. And by contributions to your viewers like you. Thank you. It's like looking in a haystack. The needle is

moving through. Have to look through the whole haystack every night in the hopes of finding every now and then everything works just right. Nature decides to put on a really dramatic show as happened when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into a tree. I think the biggest impact comet Shoemaker-Levy was right here on Earth. Because a whole generation of people children could look up. At Jupiter. Which is the brightest thing in the sky. And could say I was there watching when the comet hit you put. Me to this telescope by introducing me to music. This is a part of our experience that gives us a chance to see Americans at their best at their most enthusiastic gives Americans a chance to

show each other what their passion is and what makes life special for. Us. And. One. Of my spare time isn't really fresh. There's no place I really

want to go right now and I'm just going to relax and watch PBS. He has these dreams as far as one of the choices that I want because I enjoy the program. When I turn it on it is always going to be educational. It is always going to be enlightening as always will be entertaining. When I finished the program I feel good about it and I've learned something new and something that I remember.