Daniel James White was an American politician who assassinated George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, inside City Hall on November 27, 1978. White was convicted of manslaughter for the deaths of Milk and Moscone and served five years of a seven-year prison sentence. Less than two years after his release, he returned to San Francisco and later committed suicide.
Willie Lewis Brown Jr. is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004, the first African American to hold that office.
George Richard Moscone was an attorney and Democratic politician who was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known as "The People's Mayor," who opened up City Hall and its commissions to reflect the diversity of San Francisco, appointing African Americans, Asian Americans, and gay people. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming mayor. In the Senate, he served as majority leader. Moscone is remembered for being an advocate of civil progressivism.
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979, in San Francisco. Earlier that day White had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the lightest possible conviction for his actions. The lesser conviction outraged the city's gay community, setting off the most violent reaction by gay Americans since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
Heather Jeanne Fong is an American security official and the former chief of police for San Francisco, California, United States from 2004 to 2009. She is the first woman to lead the San Francisco Police Department, and the first Asian American woman to head a major metropolitan city police force. She is also the second Asian American police chief in SFPD history, the other being Fred Lau.
Francis Michael Jordan is an American politician and former police chief, who served as mayor of San Francisco from 1992 to 1996. He is a Democrat.
Michela Alioto-Pier is an American politician and small business owner who served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2004 to 2011. A Democrat, she represented District 2, encompassing the Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods. She previously served as a member of the San Francisco Port Commission. She was appointed to the Board of Supervisors by Gavin Newsom after he was elected mayor, in 2003. Newsom himself was initially appointed to this seat by former mayor Willie Brown.
Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, under President Joe Biden. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. A member of the Democratic Party, she was previously a U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021 and the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017.
Fred Harry Lau is a former Chief of Police for San Francisco, having served from 1996–2002. He was the first Asian American to ever hold that position, and has been called the first Chinese-American to lead the police in any major American city. In 2013, he became the TSA Federal Security Director of the San Francisco International Airport.
Cynthia Gouw is an American actress, model, and TV news anchor and host.
Charlotte Mailliard Shultz was a socialite, and philanthropist. She was the Chief of Protocol for the state of California, and the Chief of Protocol for the City and County of San Francisco. She was married to former United States Secretary of State George P. Shultz, from 1997 until his death in 2021.
Damon Jerrel Dunn is an American politician, commercial real estate developer, minister, and former football player.
Jane Jungyon Kim is an American attorney and politician, and the first Korean American elected official in San Francisco. She represented San Francisco's District 6 on the Board of Supervisors between 2011 and 2019. She is a member of the San Francisco's Democratic County Central Committee. She is executive director of the California Working Families Party.
Esther Chae (Korean: 채경주) is a Korean-American actress, published playwright, speaker and consultant for Korean entertainment and Hollywood. Chae has appeared in numerous television shows such as NCIS, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The West Wing, The Shield, and ER. She has also performed on theater stages including Yale Repertory Theater, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Mark Taper Forum/ Kirk Douglas Theater, East West Players, P.S. 122, and Harvard/American Repertory Theater. Chae was among the inaugural class of TED fellows in 2009. She wrote and performed in So The Arrow Flies, an 80-minute one-woman performance about a North Korean spy and the FBI agent that hunts her down. It touches on post-9/11 themes of terrorism, political ideology, national identity and mother-daughter relationships.
London Nicole Breed is an American politician who is the 45th and current mayor of San Francisco, serving since 2018. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the Board of Supervisors from 2015 to 2018.
African American Californians, or Black Californians are residents of the state of California who are of African ancestry. According to 2019 United States Census Bureau estimates, those identified solely as African American or black constituted 5.8% or 2,282,144 residents in California. Including an additional 1.2% who identified as having partial African ancestry, the figure was 7.0%. As of 2021, California has the largest multiracial African American population by number in the United States. African Americans are the fourth largest ethnic group in California after Hispanics, white people, and Asians. Asians outnumbered African Americans in the 1980s.
African Americans in San Francisco, California, composed just under 6% of the city's total population as of 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, down from 13.4% in 1970. There are about 55,000 people of full or partial black ancestry living within the city. The community began with workers and entrepreneurs of the California Gold Rush in the 19th century, and in the early-to-mid 20th century, grew to include migrant workers with origins in the Southern United States, who worked as railroad workers or service people at shipyards. In the mid-20th century, the African American community in the Fillmore District earned the neighborhood the nickname the "Harlem of the West," referring to New York City's Harlem neighborhood, which is associated with African American culture.
Elouise Westbrook (1915–2011) was an American housing rights and health activist in San Francisco. She was one of five activists that made up the Big Five of Bayview. Elouise is also the Great-Grandmother of NBA player Drew Gooden.
