“They Don’t Just Talk, They Act”: The Congress of Racial Equality’s Fight for Freedom in San Francisco

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates how the civil rights movement of the early 1960s unfolded in the black community of San Francisco. This study avoids the Southern focus that has come to dominate civil rights studies by using a local study to narrate and interpret the history of the Northern civil rights struggle. However, this thesis goes one step further by arguing that the Far West can be now be historically understood as a third geographic area of civil rights study. For African Americans living in the city of San Francisco their lives were inherently segregated. Through organizational records, personal papers, and newspapers, this work documents the history of San Francisco Congress of Racial Equality chapter from 1961-1965. The internal workings of this chapter and its relationship with the wider civil rights movement take centre stage in the racial drama that unfolded in the early 1960s. San Francisco CORE’s campaigns for fair housing, education reform, and employment opportunities are the main topics of this study. San Francisco CORE’s protest campaigns reveal how difficult it became for activists in the Far West to bring about any permanent economic or social transformation. CORE protested using nonviolent, direct-action protests and often negotiated with business bureaucrats, realtors, school boards, politicians, and other governmental officials to bring about change in San Francisco. However, the collective body of officials bypassed San Francisco CORE’s campaign demands and continued in their practices of racial discrimination. The San Francisco chapter enjoyed many brief victories, specifically demonstrated in their housing and employment campaigns and the popularity of nonviolent protest. However, the chapter disintegrated by the end of 1965 owing largely to the ideological shift toward Black Power which alienated many of the San Francisco’s members. Essentially, the history of San Francisco CORE reveals how the Northern and Western civil rights goals to eliminate racial prejudice have remained largely unfulfilled because of structural forces far and beyond a single organization’s ability to change.