"So I'd say growing up in San Francisco in the 60s, it was just like this melting pot of human beings just loving each other and loving our cold, foggy city. And you know, dealing with civil rights during that time. My mother was a Black Panther. So it moved into the cling cling and the ding ding to some of the riots and some of the picketing. 

As I got older, I saw some of the changes in the Western Addition. We moved from Potrero Hill to Western Addition when I was in high school. So I've been in the Western Addition ever since--okay I'll just do the years, I don't care, you can do the math--that was 1974, I was in high school. 

My best friend in high school was living here. Her family still lives here. Hi Ramona! The Johnson family. We both went to school at Convent of the Sacred Heart, upper Pacific Heights. Basically, at the end of Fillmore. Fillmore is a long boulevard, so we would walk sometimes from Pacific Heights through down to our neighborhood, Fillmore. So when you ask how that was for me, I knew the shop owners. I knew Mrs. Dawson's Hats. And we would go in and just talk with her and stuff. There was also an Ethiopian place. We'd go in and talk to them. So, from, I'd say, from Sacramento... I'd say maybe at... Starting right after California all the way down through Fillmore all the way down to O'Farrell all the way down to where it's considered the Fillmore, we actually called it the 'Mo.

So during my high school days we would just kinda hang out. It was the BBQ place to go. Or we'd say "hi" to some of the merchants. But I remember it-- the jazz era, of course, was past by the time I was in high school. But they still had a couple of clubs and definitely a lot of merchants there. And a lot of athletes and celebrities would open up places. I can't remember some of the names right now. So, I enjoyed that but it became part of my life. I didn't think about it. It's all Black merchants and stores. I'm in the Black neighborhood, so be it!

We moved to the Western Addition and I've been here ever since and to see the changes and the sad changes of gentrification and not seeing very many people who look like me. Going to the store to get my incense or, whatever, hair product, whatever. Just getting the $4 meal of fried chicken... or ribs... and greens and cornbread. Oh! I digress. That it is different. It's changed.

So you asked how was it in the 70s going to high school here. You know, it was kind of a juxtaposition because I'm in an urban environment, Black urban environment. And then I take the 24 Divisadero and I would go to Pacific Heights to go to school--the prep school, Convent of the Sacred Heart. And so to have, you know, this opulence--the privileged, not diverse at all, primarily white students... I really thought I felt like I was well balanced. Because I knew who I was, so I didn't have an identity problem at all. They were asking about my hair or whatever, it didn't bother me. I felt strong enough about who I was. 

But then it also opened up another world to me. So from my experience, I think it was kinda unique, you know, from a former ex-Black Panther single Black mom, going from "Mayberry" moving into the predominantly Black area on a very busy street. And then having that culture inside my home. My mother was an anthropologist so we talked about history and culture and justice all the time. 

We lived on Oak and Divisadero. So it’s a very busy street. It was mixed for commercial where as where I grew up, there was just rows and rows of Victorians, very much a neighborhood. So for me it was a little bit of an adjustment, you know? Because, once again, I was a coddled girl and so now I had to get on the bus. Before, I walked to school. So now I had to get on the 24 to Divisadero. So what I enjoyed is... I was like "Oh! There's a whole bunch of Black people!" You know? And I could walk-- My mother would send me to go get something, go to the store, whatever. And I'd walk in and there'd be people just standing at the corner. "Hey! How ya doin'? How's your mother doin'?" You know, so, even though it felt like a city and I was maybe just a little scared, a lil bit. Because it was more urban than Potrero Hill. I loved that there was so many people that looked after me, me and my brother, who looked after us just from being in the neighborhood.

I was like, "Wow there’s so many things available to me that I hadn't really thought of before when I see someone who looks like me doing it.”

The change is again what's hard. I gotta tell you it's hard. Both Fillmore and Divisadero.

Even before Midtown started and I got involved with what was happening, I'm still skipping down the street happy. So I skip down Divisadero street to get my BBQ ribs for $5.99. And I find that they're closed and that another place has opened up, more like a chain. They've opened up, prices are more. I don't see any African-Americans being served. I'm like, "Okay Phyllis relax. Things are changing". So I walk another block to go into where I get my hair greased. So I go in to talk to him, he's been there for 39 years. We talk a lot. He says, "I'm the last Black merchant on Divisadero, Phyllis". I was like, "Okay, we support you." Jaheim is his name, love him. 

So I'm doing my thing. I come back a month later to get my hair moisturized. There's a note in his handwriting that says, "After 40 years of business, we are closing our doors". And right there, I just wept. And when I turned around, I saw to the right of me, a beer, a cafe. Traditionally African-Americans aren't beer drinkers. But okay, I'm just saying. I didn't see any Black people sitting out there with the Pedigree dogs. I'm not judging. I'm just letting you know what my experience was. I'm standing there with my six dollars wanting to get my hair moisturizer. And I have a note that now it's closed. Where am I gonna get that? I can't afford to get the rib sandwich from that new place. It's like $15 to get it. Now I can't get my hair moisturizer, my hair grease, from my local merchant that I support. Same thing on Fillmore. They're no longer any merchants left. 

See, this opens a whole other thing about culture and the pride that we had in having young kids. When I was a little girl, right across from Popeye’s on Hayes and Divisadero, there was this beautiful Black woman that had a shop and I would go by her shop a lot. I went in and I would just talk to her. And I said, "Well, how do you open your own shop? How do you do that?"

For me to be this little Black girl stumbling into this shop and talking to a Black merchant, a young beautiful woman, I then thought to myself, "I could have my own store, too".

Now we're talking 2016. It's not about people saying, "You need to get over it, neighborhoods change.” It's more about that little Black girl, the 1% of the 3%, the little Black girls that walk down Divisadero Street and they don't see themselves. 

How can you start reaching for dreams that something you think is tangible, if you don't even see your own people? That's a bigger issue just about culture."


Interview by Alexandra Lacey and Jin Zhu.  
Edited by Maya Sisneros