San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood has lost several businesses in recent months. Local residents are fighting to preserve their community, and helping to lead that effort is San Francisco Black Wall Street.
The foundation is opening up a new business on Friday, Feb. 28, and NBC Bay Area got a sneak peek.
"This space has been a Black business space for over 40 years in this community," said Tinisch Hollins, co-founder of SF Black Wallstreet. "Part of our story is protecting this space and Black businesses."
The building on 1701 Yosemite Ave. is now called Nineteen-21 Lounge, created by the women of SF Black Wall Street – Hollins, Gwen Brown and Kenya Boddie-Austin.
The renovated space is a private, members-only social club that will be a co-working space for creatives, entrepreneurs and community members. It will have a restaurant, bar, live music and be a rental space for private events.
Ninenteen-21 pays homage to the legacy and origin of 1921, the year when the Tulsa Black Wall Street massacre happened.
In Tulsa, a mob of white attackers killed hundreds, burned down more than 1,000 homes and dozens of businesses, destroying a one-of-a-kind district in the country where a Black community thrived.
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In San Francisco, they've struggled to build and sustain Black communities. According to the U.S. Census, today's Black population in the city is at 5.7%, less than half of what it was 50 years ago.
"I'm one of those displaced San Francisco natives. I don't live in San Francisco anymore. But my footprint is here," Hollins said.
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Hollins and others would like the narrative around the Bayview to change, saying, "I think people come here either expecting a thing or seeing a thing. And because they already have a perception in their mind, whether it's from the media or from other folks' stories, they don't take the time to see the richness and the luxury and the beauty that's here."
The neighborhood has lost several businesses in recent months, but Bayview natives are putting work back into the community that raised them.
Dontaye Ball, president of the Bayview neighborhood merchants association, recently opened Gumbo Social on Third Street. Also on Third Street, Vanessa Lee had a ribbon cutting for her restaurant Smoked Soul Kitchen.
"To be able to do it in the Bayview is kind of an homage to my lineage and trying to create that where I grew up and where I was born and raised and I’m excited and happy to do it here," Lee said.
A ribbon cutting for Nineteen 21 Lounge is set for Friday, Feb. 28, along with an outdoor Black vendors night market. Learn more about the event, new lounge and SF Black Wall Street Foundation here.
