(Dis)location: Black Exodus

Prologue

Studying, visualizing, and archiving on the topic of Black out-migration from San Francisco at this moment of rampant displacement and gentrification was a daunting task for many reasons. For one, we realized that it would be inconceivable for us to capture the centuries worth of cultural, social, political, and economic contributions that Black people have made in The City. Secondly, the forces driving the loss of Black residents rely upon systemic erasures including un-naming, re-branding, co-opting, a-historicizing, and forced removal, that make it difficult to document Black people’s history and current presence in The City.
      We needed to start somewhere and we knew that we would rely on oral histories to lead us in a direction. From there we attempted to amplify those stories with artwork, historical photos, archival data, and maps to illustrate, locate and place these stories both broadly in San Francisco/U.S. contexts and specifically to the smaller neighborhoods/spaces and timeframes from which they came. Looking back as we approach the close of this zine, it makes sense that the majority of stories and content came from the two largest and most well known Black neighborhoods - the Western Addition/ Fillmore and the Bayview Hunters Point. But, there are of course other Black spaces and places within and outside of those two areas that we simply did not have the resources to cover, such as Oceanview, Sunnydale/ Visitacion Valley, Potrero Terrace, etc. An unintended imbalance and generalization exists, but we do not mean to impress upon readers that there are only two areas of significance in terms of Black San Francisco— or that only the places where Black people could live in large/concentrated numbers are important. Even the nomenclature used to describe these two areas as “historically Black”, “majority/predominantly Black”, “formerly majority Black”, etc. are choppy to navigate linguistically, and conceptually they seem to limit the wideness and richness of the many ways that Black people inhabit, resist, and create spaces in the face of ongoing structural racism and the devaluing of Black lives.
       With these limitations it is only fitting that we begin by posing questions to think about these issues going forward. What makes a neighborhood Black? Where are the Black spaces in San Francisco? How are Black people in San Francisco creating space amidst ongoing gentrification?

For map insert: Bojána Bányász, Donatella Cusmá, and Sameena Sitabkhan are practicing architects and artists from different corners of the world. As immigrants and first generation citazens, we are thoroughly Californian and are defined by our connection to this state. We are strongly rooted in community engagement and advocacy adn we believe that exceptional, experimental design belongs in all communities and spaces. More about our work can be found here and here. 

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