 I'm Naomi of the African American Center at the San Francisco Public Library. The Center is a collection of in-library use materials that serves as an introduction to African American and African history and culture throughout the Black Diaspora. The clip you're about to view is of Thomas Fleming, the founder and publisher of The Sun Reporter, San Francisco's African American weekly newspaper. He was an elder and activist of the African American community. Mr. Fleming passed away in 2006, but we were fortunate to have him come to the library for an informal talk in 1998 and we recorded it. In this segment, Mr. Fleming presents the story of his San Francisco, remembering just how unbelievably small the community was before the start of World War II. Now, Maheri is in Nashville and he started the reporter in what year in San Francisco? 1944. 1944. He came the next year and he didn't get in the paper right then. He didn't get involved in the paper until 1947. He started lending me money right away. He and Dan, Dr. Dan Collins too, to keep the paper alive. Now, Dan Collins is the first African American on the faculty of UC Med Center in the School of Dentistry. He was. 1944, is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Now, you might want to explain to the public that before the war there were what, maybe 5,000 African Americans in San Francisco? The 1940 census said there was less than 5,000 blacks living in the San Francisco. And then when the war began, some 50,000. The war workers started coming in. Now, I'm talking about the 1940 census. They started coming in short, right after Pearl Harbor. The war workers did. And Oakland then in 1940 had a black population of about 13,000, Berkeley had about 6,000. And that Berkeley, much smaller than San Francisco, had more blacks living over there than lived over here. What was the climate for African Americans in those days prior to the influx of the shipyard workers and the families? Well, it was a little different than you'd find down south. You were a few samples here. Just as well as you were down south. You couldn't stay staying in any big hotels in San Francisco. You couldn't eat the same thing in Oakland. You couldn't eat in the best restaurants there. And in fact, some of those hamburger places over on San Pablo Avenue had signs in the window saying, we have the right to refuse service to anyone. Well, we knew what the meant when it had that sign in the window. Want to learn more? You can watch the entire video at the link below or visit us on the third floor of the main library. Thanks for watching.