Pre-history
Julian Richardson was born April 4, 1916, in Birmingham, Alabama, as the youngest of eight children. [5] Raye Richardson was born around 1921/1922. [6]
The couple met at Tuskegee University, where they were both students. Richardson studied lithography in school, and he was a classmate of Ralph Ellison. The school provided a fertile intellectual environment for many African-American scholars, and George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington taught there. [5] Around 1940, Julian and Raye were married. [7] Julian served in the United States Army, which " ...he hated, dearly. He wanted to do something for his people, so did my mom," according to Blanche Richardson, their daughter. [8]
In 1946, Julian and Raye moved to San Francisco. [6] Julian held many jobs as a printer, including working at the San Francisco Chronicle. [5]
History
Founding and early years
Julian Richardson eventually opened his own company, Success Printing. [9] [10] Julian and Raye were budding community activists. [11] They decided to open a bookstore because Raye held a deep passion for books about African-Americans. The couple had a large book collection, and they often lent books to friends, [8] so Julian decided to open a bookstore in the back of his print shop. [9] [6] As explained by Raye, "There was an urgent need to have a source of knowledge about black people." [6]
As explained by Blanche Richardson in a 2008 interview:
"They shared a love of reading Black books and found them difficult to find and purchase. They realized that for a Black community to be progressive, it must have its own bookstore as a source of information about itself."
The store was located in the Western Addition neighborhood. The area had formerly been a Japanese-American neighborhood, but many homes had been vacated during the Japanese internment in World War II. As a result, African-American families began to move into the neighborhood, after previously facing housing discrimination from white landlords in other parts of the city. By the post-WWII era, the Western Addition, also known as the Fillmore district, was a thriving hub for African-American culture in the West Coast of the United States. The area was often called "Harlem of the West," and it was renowned for its jazz clubs. [12] [11]
Eventually, the bookstore was renamed Marcus Books, in commemoration of Marcus Garvey. [3] The inspiration behind the name occurred after the Richardsons read The Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or Africa for the Africans. [11] Additionally, both the fathers of Julian and Raye had been followers of Garvey. [6] Over the years, the store needed to relocate multiple times, as the neighborhood experienced large-scale redevelopment. [1]
In 1981, the bookstore moved to 1712 Fillmore Street, where it occupied a historic Victorian building for over three decades. [2] The location had previously been the site of Jimbo's Bop City, a jazz club that attracted Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and others. [13] The store became an important community space. However, the owners struggled with racism and lack of mainstream support. The Johnsons said that they and their staff often dealt with "white-only-water-fountain-level racism." [14]
Furthermore, in the 1960s and 1970s, black bookstores were spied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). [14] For example, in October 1968, J. Edgar Hoover wrote in a memo about the “increase in the establishment of black extremist bookstores which represent propaganda outlets for revolutionary and hate publications and culture centers for extremism.” The memo asked for FBI agents to identify "black extremist and/or African-type bookstores" and open investigations into them. [15]
1970s–2000
In 1976, Marcus Books opened a second store in Oakland, located at 3900 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. [16] [17] As explained by Blanche Richardson:
"When the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency began "redeveloping" Blacks out of San Francisco, devastating the self-contained and vibrant Fillmore District, many Black families moved to the East Bay and my parents opened a second store in Oakland in 1976." [10]
Over time, the Richardsons grew older. Raye received her Doctorate in Literature from University of California, Berkeley. She became the chair of the Black Studies department at San Francisco State University. Julian died in 2000, and Raye continued to operate the store alone. [6] Eventually, the Johnson family (Karen Johnson, Gregory Johnson, and Tamiko Johnson) became owners of the store. [1]
The 21st-century
In the early twenty-first century, Marcus Books began to face financial difficulties. The growth of competitors, such as Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and Amazon, brought a 60% drop in sales between 2004 and 2010. [6] However, the largest challenge to Marcus Books came in 2006, when the Johnsons took out a $950,000 predatory loan with monthly fixed interest payments. The loan had a 10% interest rate. Over time, monthly payments for the building rose to $10,000 per month. The Johnson family contacted the office of Kamala Harris to investigate the issue. In addition, the Johnsons launched a GoFundMe campaign with a $1,000,000 fundraising goal. [18] There was public outcry over its prospective closure in the Bay Area. [19] However, efforts to save the store were unsuccessful. The online fundraising campaign only raised $20,000, and the family was unable to pay the creditors before deadline.
The building was sold to the Sweis family, real estate investors and owners of Royal Cab, through bankruptcy court [20] for $1.59 million. Westside Community Services offered to pay the Sweis family $1.64 million, so that it could become Marcus Books again. However, the Sweis family refused to sell the building for under $3.2 million, and they ordered a judge to evict Marcus Books. [20] In April 2014, the bookstore was evicted due to failure to pay rent. [18] [20] London Breed, a San Francisco Supervisor at the time (later, San Francisco Mayor) said, "I wish I could come up with the money to buy it myself. But unfortunately, it's a capitalist society, and it doesn't work like that." Breed had often visited the bookstore as a child. [20]
In 2016, it was announced that Marcus Books would return to San Francisco, where they would occupy a space at the African American Art & Culture Complex (AAACC) on Fulton Street. [21] While the space would be one-sixth of the previous San Francisco store location, the store would become part of the AAACC cultural community. The AAACC space hosts other African-American organizations, such as the African American Shakespeare Company and the San Francisco Juneteenth Festival, [18] [22] and it holds a large theater and conference rooms. [23]
In total, the store has moved seven times in San Francisco, and twice in Oakland. [11]
During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Marcus Books needed to temporarily close due to social distancing restrictions. The store launched an online fundraising campaign on GoFundMe with an initial $50,000 target which was later extended to a $200,000 goal. By early June 2020, the fundraising campaign had exceeded its goal. [24]
Since its founding, Marcus Books has sold a range of books, including children's books, educational books, and Afrocentric literature. [25] They have also republished books that had been previously out of print, including The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey and Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James. The bookstore was used as a meeting space for activists, before and after protests and rallies of the civil rights movement, as well. [10]
Many notable African-American figures have patronized the store or hosted readings, including Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, [9] Terry McMillan, Walter Mosley, Muhammad Ali, Ishmael Reed, [6] Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Randall Robinson, Nikki Giovanni, E. Lynn Harris, [10] and others. In 2010, the bookstore had 6000 books in stock. [6]
Bayview–Hunters Point is the San Francisco, California, neighborhood combining the Bayview and Hunters Point neighborhoods in the southeastern corner of the city. The decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is located within its boundaries and Candlestick Park, which was demolished in 2015, was on the southern edge. Due to the southeastern location, the two neighborhoods are often merged. Bayview–Hunters Point has been labeled as San Francisco's "Most Isolated Neighborhood".
The Fillmore District is a historical neighborhood in San Francisco located to the southwest of Nob Hill, west of Market Street and north of the Mission District. The Fillmore District began to rise to prominence after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As a result of not being affected by the earthquake itself nor the large fires that ensued, it quickly became one of the major commercial and cultural centers of the city.
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store. They may be structured as sole proprietorships, closely held corporations or partnerships, cooperatives, or nonprofits. Independent stores can be contrasted with chain bookstores, which have many locations and are owned by corporations which often have divisions in other lines besides bookselling. Specialty stores such as comic book shops tend to be independent.
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.
Fillmore Street is a street in San Francisco, California which starts in the Lower Haight neighborhood and travels northward through the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights and ends in the Marina District. It serves as the main thoroughfare and namesake for the Fillmore District neighborhood. The street is named after American President Millard Fillmore.
Green Apple Books & Music is an independent bookstore in the Richmond District of San Francisco, California.
Yoshi's is a nightclub located in Jack London Square in Oakland, California, United States. The venue originally opened in 1972 as a restaurant in Berkeley, later moving to Claremont Avenue in Oakland. In 1979, the restaurant expanded into a lounge/nightclub hosting local and national jazz musicians.
Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat (1912–1959) was an African-American artist, dancer, and educator. She gained prominence in the 1940s for her art, performance and work to foster intercultural understanding and appreciation.
San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, commonly abbreviated as SPUR, is a think tank focused on urban policy in San Francisco Bay Area.
Borderlands Books is a San Francisco independent bookstore specializing exclusively in science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Lewis H. Michaux was a Harlem bookseller and civil rights activist. Between 1932 and 1974 he owned the African National Memorial Bookstore in Harlem, New York City, one of the most prominent African-American bookstores in the country.
The African-American Shakespeare Company (AASC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit professional regional theatre company in San Francisco, California. Since its founding in 1994 Sherri Young has been its Executive Director and in 2009 L. Peter Callender joined as its Artistic Director.
Bop City was a jazz club operated by John "Jimbo" Edwards in San Francisco from 1949 to 1965. It was situated in the back room of a Victorian house at 1690 Post Street, in the Western Addition district. During its heyday, the venue was known for late-night live performances of many popular jazz artists, including Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, and Charlie Parker, and was one of the most famous jazz clubs of its time, being instrumental in popularizing the modern jazz style in San Francisco.
Bound Together is an anarchist bookstore and visitor attraction on Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Its Lonely Planet review in 2016, commenting on its multiple activities, states that it "makes us tools of the state look like slackers". The bookstore carries new and used books as well as local authors.
Thomas Courtney Fleming, was one of the most influential African American journalists on the West Coast in the 20th century. Starting in 1944, he spent 61 years as an editor, reporter and columnist for the black press in San Francisco. He began his career that year as founding editor of the Reporter – then the city's only black newspaper. In 1948 it merged with the rival Sun to become the Sun-Reporter. Published by Fleming's best friend, civil rights activist and physician Dr. Carlton Goodlett, it remained San Francisco's leading black newspaper throughout Fleming's working life, and is still published weekly.
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.
David S. Johnson was an American photographer. He was known for his portrayal of society, urban life, and the jazz culture of San Francisco's Fillmore District in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as figures of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Born in Florida under segregation and trained at the California School of Fine Arts, he was the first African American student of photographer Ansel Adams.
Hazel Rodney Blackman (1921–2014) was a Jamaican-born American fashion designer, quilter, and painter. She is best known for introducing African fabrics into American fashion in the 1960s and 1970s.
The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) was an urban renewal agency active from 1948 until 2012, with purpose to improve the urban landscape through "redesign, redevelopment, and rehabilitation" of specific areas of the city.
The East Bay within the San Francisco Bay Area has historically had a significant Black population, in comparison to the other counties and cities nearby. Culture of the area has been shaped by the Black population. Most notably the 1960s formation of the Black Panther Party happened in city of Oakland, which also served as the headquarters.