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(Dis)location: Black Exodus

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Leola King: Written Interview
Interviews by Elizabeth Pepin Silva

What year did you come to the Bay?
San Francisco in ’46.

“I moved here (to San Francisco) when I was 17 years old, and I opened my first business, which was called the Oklahoma Barbeque. I specialized in a lot of wild game, smoked all kinds of delicious meats that I laced with different kinds of fresh fruits. So it was a very interesting business, because there was nothing here like that, so I was an immediate success. I would open my business about 10 o’clock in the morning and I closed about 4:00. I was busy all day, all night, lines outside.”

It was a fabulous, fabulous! The barbecue pit. That’s the one where I was on the corner, the lot, yeah, on Geary on that whole, I bought the lot from Charles Sullivan. And he offered me the lot for $3,000. And I wanted to move a building that was down Van Ness street there and build around it. So that’s what I did. I bought a little log cabin from Horse Trader Ed. Well, Horse Trader Ed was a very cosmopolitan person. He liked the mixture of nationalities because he sold to all of the hustlers and all those kind of people.

When did you buy the lot and the log cabin?
In the ‘50s. Toward the last of the ‘50s. And then I took it and I moved it on a flatbed truck. And we had to cut the wires to get it through Geary Street because at that time, it wasn’t wide. So we moved that building there and put it up on stilts. And then we poured the foundation. Cecil Poole was my attorney. So he helped me with setting it down and getting all the things I had to get to open the business. It was my father and myself. But my father had no money, I had the money.

They, the people that got my barbecue pit was the gangsters. And then they sold it, the barbecue pit, and the gangsters and the big money people all had that under control. I don’t know how it was maneuvered. But anyway, they put my money in the city treasure, because the agency took it, not anybody else. So it was in the city treasure. They was acquiring everything they could acquire downtown, off of Van Ness – all the way to Fillmore Street, and past Fillmore to Divisadero. They didn’t ask me, they just took it.

Gave you 30 days?
No, they didn’t even do that. They, what they did was they took the land, notified me that they had put my money in the city treasure. They only gave me what I paid for the lot. Nothing else. All of the building of the buildings, and the remodeling and all the deep walk-in freezers and all that, was out of my pocket... And they bought up most of Geary Street. They didn’t buy to widen it, they were taking part of Japantown. Geary Street, there wasn’t for widening the street. They took the property ‘cos they wanted it. They had plans to take the whole thing.

When did you open your first club?
Well, I opened that in I think towards ‘60s. The Blue Mirror.
When I opened The Blue Mirror, I had lost this barbecue pit to the redevelopment.

Why did you want to start a night club?
Well, because I was in the entertainment world in Los Angeles. And I liked the entertainment world, and I didn’t—the barbecue pit was a terrific success. But I saw this place as elegant, having an elegant bar, that was different, ‘cos nobody here had a real—in Fillmore—didn’t
have but one bar that was really nice, and that was The Plantation.

Did you have to pay off the police?
They never asked me for any money because I was always under the law. I didn’t break no laws. So they, why would they want any money from me? I’m operating, the only thing I had to worry about is to be sure I closed up at 2 o’clock, because they would put people in to watch you to close you down because you’re not paying off, see? So I kept myself very clean, and I, I mean, I just didn’t buy into the fast life. I didn’t want no part of it. I wanted no part of it, because before I came here, I had a lot of experience with working with different groups and dancing groups, and being in the theaters and all that. And every time I would go out to stand-in for parts in the movies, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and all the big movie houses, they would always select me. And then they would tell me I have to stay after they get through interviewing the other girls and they always wanted to go to bed with me, and I was afraid of people. So I would never buy into that. I said, “no, my talent don’t get me where I want to go, I will not go anywhere.” So that’s what made me open the club. And the club was fabulous. It was two huge rooms together, but there was not a partition between them, but they were huge. And then was a staircase going up the stairs to the ladies’ bathroom and the men’s bathroom. We had like a lounge up there for people when they’d go to the bathroom. And underneath the back end of the building, I had a kitchen, a gourmet kitchen with every- thing—all stainless steel. Very, very nice. I would prepare like town and country food and give it away. I never sold any food. It was just too much work. So I would have maybe two days a week, or three days a week, I would have a beautiful buffet. And when Louis Armstrong would come in town, he was my favorite. He and his wife, Lucille. Was my favorite guest.

I did jazz, blues. I started booking people. Like Sam Cooke would come in. And he would just love my place and he would always sing. He would always entertain in my club. And I had Charles Brown and Amos Milburn who I booked for about 3, 4 years. In my club. I had people like Jean Turner. I hired her as a waitress and made a singer out of her. And she went with Stan Kenton. On the Road with Stan Kenton. And then I had Lowell Fulson. Listen, I had every entertainer that was popular at the time. Yeah, it was packed. All, and 7 days a week like that.

How many people could fit?
Oh, approximately about 300. You see all the chandeliers hanging?

Everybody in business liked me, ‘cos I was, you got to picture the difference. I was a girl out of Los Angeles with a whole lot of umpf, dressed and was not a party-going person. Didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, had no bad habits. The only habit I had was working and making money.

I’m telling you, Sam Cooke was up there looking at me. Three or four lawyers out of the East Coast came looking for me. And I got engaged to two or three... I had game. I just had good game. And I didn’t trust them, see?

I had fashion shows in the mornings. In the mornings, 6 o’clock, I’d open up and have fashion shows. When they would wear the little teddies and the things for the things for the beds and all that.
See, that’s why I was famous ‘cos I brought so many things alive, you know?

How long did the Blue Mirror stay open?
Oh, about ten years.

Until redevelopment?
Come in and took it away. Well, the same thing happened at the Blue Mirror that happened at the restaurant, the barbeque house. … At that time the Redevelopment was just beginning to get power in the area. They began to organize their way of getting the property. We still weren’t really aware of what they were doing. …I went to one meeting where they were trying to set up the Redevelopment in the whole area. That’s when I was aware that they had passed a law for eminent domain. …They were talking about the relocation of the businesses. But they weren’t speaking as though they were getting ready to take it at that time. The police came to me and told me, said, ’Be aware. They are closing up a lot of bars up in the next two, three blocks. Because what they are doing is getting violations against you to take it.’ …I didn’t know that they had targeted me and the Blue Mirror. I guess I’d been in the Blue Mirror maybe seven or eight years. So the target was to close me down because I had such a tremendous business. I was told by the business people, the Jewish people, that my business would go for a big price and that’s why they’re trying to eliminate you – by putting police in the area, undercover people, to give you violations to close you up. That’s one way they were getting rid of us. This is exactly what they did to me.