Dear Friends --
I hope you are enjoying the start of summer. It has been a while since I’ve written but the issues facing our city are no less pressing now than they were last year. In the Fillmore, where thousands of families and mom and pops businesses have been displaced by gentrification and redevelopment, Marcus Book Store (the oldest black-owned bookstore in the country) is now facing an unfair eviction. Please click here to help.
Marcus Books has
hosted thousands of authors including Rosa Parks, James Baldwin,
Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Patti Labelle,
and B.B. King. The storefront used to be Jimbo’s Bop City, a jazz club
that hosted musical greats and is largely responsible for Fillmore
Street being named the "Harlem of the West.” This place is more than a
bookstore. It's a cultural and educational institution with an
international reputation. Marcus
Books is a part of the soul of San Francisco.
Like so many others during the real estate boom, the Johnson Family, who owns the bookstore and lives upstairs from it, became the victims of predatory lending and a usurious loan with an interest rate of 10%. Their building was sold off in bankruptcy court to real estate speculators Nishan and Suhaila Sweis. Now the Johnson’s have found the resources to repurchase their property with the help of their long time partner Westside Community Services. ACCE has set up a way for you to help Save Marcus Books. Click here.
This November
voters will decide whether to accept or reject the 8 Washington wall
of luxury condos on the waterfront. The battle is heating up. The 8
Washington developers have launched a deceptive campaign to qualify a
counter-initiative promising "new housing, new waterfront public parks
and open space.” Don’t be fooled. Last year our coalition collected
31,000 signatures in less than 30 days to qualify a referendum to
reject the high-rise luxury condo complex. To support the
campaign, please visit: www.
Please take a little time to support causes that make our city an exciting, humane, and diverse place to live.
Yours
truly,
Julian Davis