Art, Cultural Resistance & Transformation

An interview with Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin by Jarrel Phillips

Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin is a professor at City College of San Francisco where she teaches African American history in the United States.

Jarrel Phillips: Talk about your experience in San Francisco. Are you from here?

Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin: Yes, I’m definitely from San Francisco. My family migrated to San Francisco between the second and third waves of the Great Migration. They came from Kilgore, TX, which is a small railroad town that built up around the 1870s. My grandmother and her sisters came here pretty much just like a lot of other African American people, looking for new opportunities and a different way of life. They were sharecroppers… born on a farm. They didn’t have birth certificates. They did not know how to read. So they wanted to give new opportunities to my mother, who was born in San Francisco.

By Jarrel Phillips

I am a product of San Francisco and San Francisco is a product of me. San Francisco has always been a city in transition, characterized by its commitment to cultural diversity and creative communities. It was once home to a significant and vibrant African American population. San Francisco State University started the nation’s first Black Studies Program in 1968 and the Fillmore District was often called the Harlem of the West. But according to the last census, San Francisco has had one of the largest declines in Black population of any large city since the 1970s when Blacks made up 13.4 percent of the city. By 2013, the Black population was less than half of that and it has declined visibly since then. The African American middle class has almost disappeared and San Francisco’s public schools reflect that continuing decline in population. According to the San Francisco Unified School District, its African American student population plummeted almost 60 percent from 2001 to 2015.

An Interview with Emory Douglas by Jarrel Phillips

Emory Douglas is the former minister of culture and revolutionary artist for the Black Panther Party, who continues to be a progressive artist dealing with social commentary in his artwork.

By Christine Joy Ferrer

Blanca Gotchez Melara remembers it well. The potent fragrance of basil, black melons and geraniums adorning Nativity dioramas in her hometown of Santa Ana, El Salvador.

The Nacimientos or Nativities were never just Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus but a more elaborate arrangement of clay, wax, wood, metal, fabric, and beads depicting the Christ birth. The main focus was the replication of a whole town with three-dimensional illustrations from one’s daily life in a variety of scales, symbolizing one’s connection to one’s environment relative to the Nativity. The dioramas could include, among the biblical scenes, figurines of women making tortillas, farmers milk

By Cat Brooks

My entire life has been dedicated to art and activism. As a racially-mixed child from a broken home full of various substances—I could have ended up anywhere. But in 4th grade, fate landed me in the classroom of Ms. Barbara Gerhardt. I was angry. I was troubled. I was a disturbance in the classroom. Rather than throw me away—as happens to so many Black and Brown young people in our schools—Ms. Gerhardt found a way to channel all of that misdirected energy into something else. She directed me toward a local theater conservatory. My course was set.

By Kheven Lagrone and Jarrel Phillips

We are the San Francisco no one talks about
—James Baldwin

Today, a native Black San Franciscan often hears, “An African American born in San Francisco? I’ve never met one before. You must be one of the few.”

For many of us, the questions conjure up feelings of marginalization and confront us with the reality of losing our homes. Just what does it mean to be a native San Franciscan? In response to this challenge we are creating two public art exhibitions on the theme I Am San Francisco. The first, curated by Kheven LaGrone, is subtitled (Re)Collecting the Home of Native Black San Franciscans, the second, by Jarrel Phillips, is Black Past and Presence.