San Francisco’s Fillmore district, pictured in the 1950s, had a thriving, predominantly African American community before urban renewal decimated it in the 1960s. 

How do you make up for the sins of the past?

“You don’t” is how much of the country would answer that question. Fighting against efforts to remedy longstanding injustice is among the animating forces behind the MAGA movement.

Here in San Francisco, we have a different view. And one local injustice looms larger than most.

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The city’s Fillmore district was decimated by urban renewal in the 1960s and ’70s, destroying a once-thriving hub of Black life and culture. Nearly 50,000 African Americans were displaced. The Black population of San Francisco has since dropped precipitously from 13.4% in 1970 to approximately 5.6% in 2024.

San Francisco has given African American residents little recompense for its willful destruction of their community. Instead, it has too often twisted itself in knots in sideways pursuits of remediation — including, but certainly not limited to, ending the teaching of algebra to middle schoolers in the name of equity.

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Suffice it to say, this was not among the exhaustive list of actions proposed in 2023 by the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee.

Discussions between the city and members of the Black community as to how to make the report’s recommendations a reality are ongoing. In January, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed on to the creation of a public-private reparations fund but committed no city monies.

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San Francisco Director of Community Affairs Ernest “EJ” Jones told the editorial board that the city “wants to support the community however we can and would listen to proposals put in front of us.”

The Rev. Amos Brown, a member of the reparations advisory committee, and those he represents have grown increasingly frustrated at the pace of reparation efforts and by what Brown sees as “an apology but no action” from the city. This is understandable.

Brown holds particular ire over the city’s failure to move on the reparation committee’s proposed revitalization of the Fillmore Heritage Center. Vacant since 2019, the 50,000-square-foot center has become a visible symbol of mismanagement and neglect. Since it opened nearly two decades ago, the center has struggled to keep its tenants. It’s been the subject of multiple lawsuits and recriminations from the Black community that the city has mismanaged the space. Vacant, the building costs the city close to $1 million a year to maintain.

Brown said the structure should be “a watering hole” for Black life and business in the Fillmore — modeled, in some ways, after the nearby Japan Center Malls.

“We believe the Heritage building should be given to the Black community,” Brown told the Chronicle editorial board at a meeting in January.

He cited the Asian Art Museum as a precedent for such a turnover. In 1996, San Francisco signed over its old Main Library to a nonprofit to run the museum after taxpayers spent more than $40 million to repair the building. It turned a crumbling eyesore into a hub for Asian culture and an economic driver for a struggling neighborhood.

It’s a compelling idea. Land was unjustly taken from the Black community. It makes sense that land should be part of any reparation effort.

Brown suggested Brigitte LeBlanc, who heads the African American Chamber of Commerce, as a good candidate to run the center. LeBlanc, however, who is not tied to the project at present, said it would be expensive to run the building and believes additional research is needed.

Indeed, the Asian Art Museum turnover was funded by millions in private donations and tens of millions more in public bonds ratified by voters. A similar effort would no doubt be needed for a Heritage Center turnover, further complicated by the fact that a conservative group has already sued the city over its fledgling reparation planning.

“The reactivation of the Fillmore Heritage Center is a priority for me and the city,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the area. “But it can’t be viewed in isolation. It’s part of a broader revitalization effort already underway.”

Last September, for example, Mayor Lurie and Mahmood announced the Fillmore Community Action Plan, aimed at determining where residents want expansion and investment most to avoid the mistakes of urban renewal. 

In November, Align Real Estate submitted plans for housing at the former Safeway and its parking lot at Webster Street and Geary Boulevard, increasing the originally proposed 1,000 units to 1,800, with around 15% designated as affordable. Align’s plan for the site was renegotiated to include a smaller, 20,000-square-foot grocery store at the base of a residential building, potentially allowing for an interim grocery store to operate during construction. Mahmood, who has been working to get Align developers to agree to provide an interim grocery store since taking office in January 2025, reached an agreement with the developer that it would put a new grocery store out for bid. (Safeway is not interested in reopening a store here, but Smart & Final has expressed interest.)

The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, guided by a community-centered design approach, has been renovating the Buchanan Street Mall, a city park that runs through a five-block section of the Western Addition, from Eddy to Grove streets. The park is expected to open by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the city’s storefront grants program is now open to the lower Fillmore and could help to fill out the street’s many vacant spaces. It provides up to $100,000 to eligible businesses to help them offset the cost of their first year of operations.

Of course, any neighborhood revitalization effort will inevitably be complicated by 50,000 square feet of empty Heritage Center blight.

The editorial positions of The Chronicle, including election recommendations, represent the consensus of the editorial board, consisting of the publisher, the editorial page editor and staff members of the opinion pages. Its judgments are made independent of the news operation, which covers the news without consideration of our editorial positions.

While it considers the center’s ultimate fate, the city can and should make greater attempts to fill the space. Brown wants that to happen in time for the Juneteenth celebration this year — an ambitious but worthwhile goal.

Determining new sustainable uses for the Heritage Center is integral to restoring the neighborhood and to repairing the scars of urban renewal. In the interim, new housing, retail and parks can help to revitalize the neighborhood and serve its community of residents.

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