By Peter L. Stein
Growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s, my friends and I saw vast tracts of land in the center of the city lie vacant despite many attempts at “urban renewal.” What we weren’t taught was the deep history of San Francisco’s premiere Japanese and African American communities in the Fillmore, nor the profound impact urban renewal would have on the fabric of many American cities.
“The Fillmore” is a feature-length documentary I made for PBS that tells the poignant story of the rise and fall of what some people now look back on as “The Harlem of the West.”
Clip courtesy KQED. More at PBS’s The Fillmore website.