Waves of jazz music flows out of a tiny building on Fillmore Street. Walking past the sounds, it is nearly impossible not to look into the tinted windows and see people playing saxophones, banging on their drums and strumming their guitars, making music rich with African American culture. Despite the clear content on their faces and the care-free nature of the jazz, looking into the building on a beautiful Sunday afternoon still brings a tingle of sadness. While the room is full with music, there are only a handful of people there to hear it.

To many, San Francisco is the dream destination; a busy city with so much to do and even more people to meet. Thousands of people flock here every year. However, there is one group of people who are moving out in massive numbers, and so far, nothing is being done about it.

The African American population in San Francisco has declined by 40 percent over the last twenty years, according to the U.S. Census. Now, the black community makes up about 6.9 percent of the city's population, a huge decrease from the nearly 10 percent share in 1990. Why are the black members of the city's community leaving?

One must look into the past where the urban renewal plan of the 1960s forced many families out of their homes and promised them new places to live after redevelopment. However, after nearly forty years, the development was never completed. "Imminent domain was an intentional, malicious act to destroy the black communities," says Charles Spencer, the owner of the iconic New Chicago Barbershop, wearing a crisp, striped shirt and equally professional slacks. "The objective was to make sure no one would come back. It took decades [and] people already had lives elsewhere. Even if you wanted to come back, there was nothing to come back to.

"In most communities there is a life force," adds Spencer while lounging in his chair. "In Japantown, if you want to open up a shop, you have to buy into the life force. He gave the example of the Castro, saying you have to buy into their life force to be successful. In the Fillmore, the attitude is different: "People think that the black community is stupid and we don't work hard. I'm not stupid; in fact I would say that I'm very smart and I would argue that we work twice as hard because we need to."

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency declared the neighborhood blighted, an urban area in a neglected or rundown condition. In the late 1940s, the agency bought out local businesses and houses, citing 'imminent domain' as the cause. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed, as well as thousands of Victorian style homes.

"They bought out Victorian style homes for $1 which gave us these 'Certificates of Preference'," says Spencer, holding the 1969 document appointed to Reginald J. Pettus, Jr., the original owner of the barbershop, one of the only businesses able to withstand the redevelopment. "It's framed because it's a worthless piece of paper."

The Fillmore district, which became popular to working class African Americans during the 1940s (when the Japanese were forced to enter internment camps after the attacks on Pearl Harbor), was at the center of black culture in San Francisco. There were jazz clubs lining the streets and plenty of black-owned businesses. Now, after walking past Geary Street, most of the storefronts are empty.

"The urban renewal was a monster," says Ace Washington, a local community activist. "I generally believe change is good but many businesses were destroyed and no one came back from it. I really think it single-handedly robbed us of our culture."

Kevin Duncerson remembers walking down the streets of a very different Fillmore, where instead of the newly built Jazz Historic Center, there was a field of tomatoes. Duncerson would catch glimpses of the field while going home from school and see the old woman, constantly bent over, tending to her garden. "I remember never really seeing a white face," recalls Duncerson, 49, a barber at Spencer's Barbershop. "I would see one or two white faces in a week. When I say 'white,' I mean Caucasian, Asian, Russian-- anyone with a light face. Every time I saw one, it was something that stood out, something I remembered."

"I call it the 'Feel-no-more,'" says Washington, 54, who spent all of his life in San Francisco, even going as far to call himself a historian of the Fillmore district as he goes to committee meetings and documents them. "There was nothing but black businesses here when I was growing up. Now there's nothing."

The Fillmore, also called the "Harlem of the West" in the past, is not the only area dealing with African Americans moving away, known as the "Black Exodus."

According to the 2000 Census, the number of African Americans in San Francisco has been halved, going from 13.5 percent in 1970 to only 6.5 percent in 2000. The same effects have been happening in Oakland and other cities around the Bay Area as many blacks are moving to suburban cities. With the high percentage of blacks leaving the city, San Francisco's government decided to take some action.

"The City of San Francisco is at a critical juncture. In recent years, the African American population has steadily declined from 124,821 in 1980 to 99,199 in the year 2000," according to The African American Out-Migration Task Force, a committee started in 2007 by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell to address the decreased numbers of blacks in the city.

The committee cites the reasons for the migration to be a lack of available, affordable houses in the city, and more opportunity for higher paying jobs in small suburbs. "The increase in economic status has enabled many African Americans homeowners to sell their houses and take the profits to the suburbs," according the Task Force.

The Task Force is no longer active, and there is no action planned to work towards the regaining of the black culture in San Francisco. "It was a joke from the beginning," laughs Sheryl Davis, the Program Director of Mo' Magic, a program with the Public Defender Office that coordinates education, job training, social development, and health programs to help children. "The force was full of fifty-year-old people who owned homes, when you could buy a home for less money and were comfortable living [retired] in San Francisco. They were trying to figure out why people in their thirties with families were leaving. I was in the meeting and my eyes were rolling."

"Parents in their thirties decided that maybe they wanted actual houses with yards, something you can't get in San Francisco. Some people left because they're part of families and wanted a better education for their children," continues Davis, who has lived here in San Francisco for twelve years. "But that doesn't address the issue that if you have children who are undereducated for years, moving to another city won't help. Now these new schools are not equipped for the new students who aren't educated to the level they are supposed to be and the cycle continues."

Some feel the Task Force, designed by the city's Mayor collected a lot of data, but this followed with no action to help bring back or keep the black population. "The only people [the Task Force] worked for [were] those on the payroll," says Davis. "It only works on payday. The idea of prestige and meeting with the mayor is good enough for some. Where's the substance? We're, what, 6 percent here? We don't exist. We have no voice."
Although the subject of revitalizing the city is controversial for the blacks currently living here, there seems to be one common view: the black community needs to stand up and fight what is happening to them. "We've been robbed because of money. If we stop bullshitting, now would be the best time to do it," says Duncerson. "Do what you have to do right now maybe we'll get there."

"There is lots of opportunity here," says Davis. "The problem is getting people to prepare to own businesses that flourish. We can't give people money and a storefront to do whatever they want with them. We need to equip people with the tools to learn what is going to sell and how to make their business flourish, because you can't sell bootlegged DVDs."

Looking at a wall of photographs full of haircuts, historical artifacts, and iconic people, Charles Spencer quietly begins to speak. "Have you ever heard the saying," he says, "That when a danger is knocking on your neighbor's neighbor's door and that takes out one person, then they start knocking on our neighbor's door, that takes out another person? Then they're knocking on your door and there's no one left to help you. We're all in this together." [X]