After Many years of Disenfranchisement, San Francisco’s Fillmore Appears to Rebuild With Black-Led Market
Through her nonprofit organization, Imprint City, she has hosted events such as Bayview Live, a music and arts festival that ran from 2016-2019. One challenge she faced promoting events was figuring out how to attract black people to a town that doesn’t have a lot of people who identify as black.
“The landscape here is just not black,” said Fennell, who now works in Mayor London Breed’s administration. “It’s not a black majority, it’s a super-minority. I prefer to plan black events for black people, so I generally have to advertise outside of San Francisco.”
Fennell said predatory lending and soaring home prices are problems that have contributed to the exodus of black residents.
“Without strong economic policies to sustain the black community, it’s all just social policy,” Fennell said. “People need to own where they are. This is the only way they can be stabilized.”
Jameel Rasheed Patterson sees redevelopment as a force of nature, but only if government is in step with the community. Marking a community as derelict, he said, allows the government to make changes without residents’ consent.
“They throw out little code words in the form of dog whistles to suggest that the community doesn’t care about the neighborhood,” said Patterson, associate director of the New Community Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering disadvantaged communities. “So we have to remove people to transform the neighborhood, then there’s gentrification of pest control.”
How In The Black works
In The Black is funded by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Dream Keeper Initiative, which is directed by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. dr Sheryl Evans Davis, the commission’s executive director, praised Harris’ selflessness and her ability to focus on a project outside of her comfort zone in the culinary industry.
“I think In The Black gave people a certain level of hope to be able to share spaces and work together,” Davis said. “I think it also opened up the possibility of accessing and activating other rooms even along the Fillmore corridor.”
CIK Apparel hangs at the In The Black store in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco on June 9, 2023. Rent for the marketplace is about $8,000 per month, with businesses paying between $600 and $1,500. According to Harris, In The Black grossed $20,000 in December. Since then, the company’s monthly sales have ranged from about $8,000 to $12,000 due to the fickle retail trends. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Still, In The Black manager Joshua Farr hopes the market will expand to cities like Oakland in the near future.
“It’s just business as usual,” said 40-year-old Farr. “We’re trying to learn, to document, and to piece together our history so that we’re able to do it again and do it better, and do it in new spaces and do it for us, even new industries.” .”
Some of the companies currently in business were part of the first SFHDC Minding My Black-Owned Business cohort in 2022. The 12-week pilot program awarded companies $7,500 in grants.
Cianni Jackson participated in the program. She founded her company, CIK Apparel, during the 2020 race riots because she wanted to show the pride and strength inherent in black culture.
A native of Fillmore, Jackson designs and sells jackets, hoodies and other gear featuring unique patches with messages such as “Black Girl Magic” and “Rooting for Everybody Black.” She likes it when people try on her clothes in the store.
“I feel like if you look them in the face, they’ll take it away from you sooner,” said Jackson, 43. “So being in The Black was a great opportunity for me to showcase my projects to the public.”
According to Harris, who is in the process of opening a coffee shop a few blocks from Marketplace, In The Black is currently looking for retailers that sell hair care and other lifestyle essentials.
She would love to stay at the Fillmore again.
“I’m just waiting for the market to get better and then try to take my chance and buy something,” Harris said. “I’m always afraid of having to take a second or third job if all I have to do is maintain my lifestyle.”
