Our Blog!
November 17, 2024
We will post content here that will give you some things to talk about.
As we prepare to bring back The Baobab Tree, AAGSNC’s journal, let’s revisit some of the excellent articles published in our journal.
Wow! If you missed the November meeting, you missed an outstanding session, with presentations from four AAGSNC authors who are featured on the AAGSNC Bookshelf. AAGSNC’s Historian Jacqueline Chauhan, presented the book authored by her father, prominent Bay Area labor leader, Cleophus Williams. The group had a brief discussion about San Francisco’s Black history. Ms. Jackie spoke of the historic Booker T. Washington Hotel, formerly located in the Western Addition’s Fillmore District, which was once known as the “Harlem of the West”. Major African American celebrities stayed at the hotel while performing in the Bay Area. Here is an excerpt from our journal from Fall 2011, wherein Ms. Jackie writes a remembrance as a child growing up in this exciting atmosphere.
“Remembering the Booker T. Washington Hotel
By Jaqueline Chauhan
The Booker T. Washington Hotel in San Francisco was a world unto itself for Black celebrities in the days of segregation, when Blacks were not allowed to stay at the city’s downtown hotels. It hosted some of the biggest names you could find, and I was right there with them, because my mother worked there. She’s provided me with a history of my childhood that I want to preserve, and now I hope to preserve the memory of the Booker T. This hotel should be on a list of historic landmarks for African-American entertainment in San Francisco.
I was at the Booker T. on and off from age eight to 18 years old, spending time there while my mother, Sadie Williams, was working. She started as a hotel desk clerk. Maya Angelou’s mother, Vivian Bixter, was also a clerk and they became good friends. Later, when I was in high school, my mother became manager. Marie Alexander was head of housekeeping, but only men were allowed to use the vacuum cleaner. The hotel probably had fifteen employees, including three bartenders.
To occupy my time, I gave out room keys and became a PBX operator at a young age. PBX was a telephone system with a switchboard, an electromagnetic device that required the operator to plug telephone lines into their destination telephone wires by hand.
The hotel’s last owner, Willie Lee Young, was born in Texas in 1920; he died in San Francisco in 1985. He owned a rooming house before he bought the hotel. Mr. Young leased the cocktail lounge to Charles Sullivan, who pulled in standing room only crowds every night with live music. Mr. Sullivan also booked some of the biggest black entertainers at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium (called The Harlem of the West), including James Brown, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard, and the Coasters. I remember having both James Brown and Hank Ballard sing Happy Birthday to me.
I interviewed folks about the hotel who also remembered Dinah Washington, Earl Grant, Nat “King” Cole and his trio, and others in that generation of musicians. They would rehearse at the hotel during the day, which was wonderful for me because I couldn’t go to the Fillmore—I was too young so my mother didn’t allow it. However, I did see opera star Marian Anderson, singer-dancer Josephine Baker, and singer-actor Paul Robeson in concert.
In 1952, San Francisco Mayor Elmer Robinson said “it would be a desecration and an insult” for Robeson to perform at San Francisco’s Opera House because of Robeson’s support for Communist ideology, so the great bass-baritone was barred from that venue. In response, Robeson held a press conference with the San Francisco Chronicle at the Booker T. Washington Hotel, in which he called Robinson “one of the principal fascists of the West Coast.
It wasn’t just musicians who patronized the Booker T. Washington. Legendary San Francisco Giants homerun hitter Willie “Stretch” McCovey and boxer Archie Moore stayed there. I saw Joe Louis fight. Civil rights activist W. E. B. DuBois, the tap-dancing Step Brothers, and the Harlem Globetrotters were guests at the hotel. In 1960, the Ugandan ambassador to the United Nations changed from another hotel to the Booker T. Washington because, he said, “I wanted to see how my people live in your country.”
I saw the celebrities in the daytime. Most were very friendly to Ms. Sadie’s daughter and would hang around the front desk or in the lobby just to talk, like Little Willie John. Richard Berry was happy I liked his music so we started a fan club chapter. James Brown would ask my opinion on how a suit looked before he had it tailored. Bobby “Blue” Bland would talk to me to get on my good side because he wanted to marry my mother.
I was the unofficial critic of new songs for many groups. Jackie Wilson and Little Richard were not so friendly to me. Earl Grant would play at mother’s friends’ parties. Later, when Duke Ellington would stay downtown, his band members stayed at the hotel. I have many, many more celebrities I can talk about.”
For more of Ms. Jackie’s article, check out the full issue of the Fall 2011 Baobab Tree journal. You may do so here. Back issues are free to all AAGSNC members.
And for more on the “Harlem of the West”, check out this video, courtesy of the San Francisco African American Historical & Cultural Society, below.
Sledgehammers!
Here are some resources to help you begin to break down those brick walls, courtesy of our October 2023 guest speaker, Donise Smith Lei, and our own Lifetime Member, Nicka Smith.
