San Francisco’s most historic Black district was shared with Japanese Americans until the latter were forced out during their racially-motivated 1942 internment of World War II. There was plenty of resistance to African Americans moving anywhere but here and the Bayview-Hunters Point District, next to a Naval shipyard. The Black Middleclass, eager to expand into Victorian homes in the 1940s and 50s, moved in to strengthen their presence in the social and business core of the Fillmore District.

    Roughly bordered by Octavia, Divisidero, Bush and Duboce Streets, the Fillmore  became the "Harlem West" beginning in the 1940’s, as Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and R&B performers like Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Temptations and Aretha Franklin performed at the Fillmore Theatre on a regular basis. Fillmore Street was similarly like 125th Street in Harlem. Cadillacs and Lincolns would line up dropping off stars and those wanting to be seen with stars at the corner of Fillmore Street and Geary Blvd. Then the heavy hand of city redevelopment intervened. 

    By the numbers, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRDA) led by Justin Herman was ugly and most concede, racially motivated. The predominatly Black Fillmore District was declared blighted in 1948 and expanded to 60 square blocks by 1956. So unlike other parts of town where landowners and businesses could get improvement loans, commerical bankers were reluctant to invest in the Fillmore. Starved of improvement capital, seedy Fillmore businesses sprung up next to vibrant ones to further tarnish area reputation. By 1960, most of present day Japantown was razed. Instead of spending the $50 million of federal funds for true redevelopment, The SFRDA employed imminent domain law that forced landowners to sell at depressed prices. This horrific process destroyed 883 businesses and 2500 Victorian houses, and moved out 4,700 African American families. By 1964, much of tradtionally Black Fillmore District had undergone large scale demolition.
   

   In a portion of the cleared land, high-rise and low-rise public housing was built. Predictably, the Black Middleclass scattered to other parts of town. Others left for larger houses in Oakland Hills and Berkeley. By 1968, when the Fair Housing Act became national law, remaining middlecalss leaving for the suburbs became a flood. Poorer families stayed in the Fillmore residential projects or moved to Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeastern tip of San Francisco. Once vibrant black businesses shuttered along Fillmore Street south of Geary Boulevard.

    One thing the SFRDA got right was to open the Japanese Cultural & Trade Center in 1968 between Laguna and Fillmore and Geary and Post. Over the years it re-anchored Japanese culture and housing redevelopment in the northern part of the community.

    By the 1970s, housing prices in San Francisco shot up. Higher prices presented a choice between gentrification for the Fillmore District south of Geary Boulevard or some other redevelopment approach that succeeded elsewhere. Other cities, notably Baltimore, employed an imaginative redevelopment program that attracted $1 of private money for every $1 dollar of public money invested.

   Rewind for a minute. Imagine $50 million federal funds coupled with $50 million of private investment in the 1970s. That works out to an average of about $30,000 in low interest loans for 3,383 businesses and Victorian houses that could have been rebuilt when prices were relatively cheap, instead of public housing. A large park area could have been created as well. A new Black Urban Middleclass could have joined the last remaining Black Middleclass moved out. Of course other cultures would also have moved in over time, but it would have happened more organically to preserve the rich heritage of the district, just as Italian heritage is preserved in North Beach despite integration. San Francisco would have had another strong tourism district, better schools in the area and a lower crime rate. Instead it missed a second opportunity for the Fillmore.

    The good news is that Willie Brown, San Francisco's first black mayor (1995-2003), called in a lot of chips to help re-establish a Fillmore Entertainment District. Sparked by the re-opening of the Fillmore Theater, Rasselas jazz club, Sheba's Piano Lounge, John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom Room, 1300 on Fillmore and Yoshi's, a partial revivial is underway.