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Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day – a day when Americans honor Dr. King’s legacy by engaging in service for the betterment of our communities. So it is befitting to reflect on this day 75 years ago when the San Francisco Foundation was founded as a vehicle for community philanthropy in the Bay Area.
The year that the foundation was born, 1948, a young Martin Luther King – then just 19 – graduated from Morehouse College and entered seminary school. As a fellow Morehouse Man, my worldview was deeply affected by Dr. King’s teachings. Those teachings and that immersion continue to serve as a compass in my philanthropic work leading the San Francisco Foundation, which is singularly focused on racial equity as our region’s greatest challenge. And as we mark our 75th anniversary, we’re also reflecting on the ways in which our history has a social justice throughline that embodies Dr. King’s values and radical imagination. |
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In 1948, on the heels of World War II, three individuals had an idea: to create a different kind of philanthropic organization focused on the Bay Area. Unlike private and family foundations, it would allow donors to pool their giving to meet the region’s needs and to direct support to communities excluded by unjust systems and laws. Today, that foundation—the San Francisco Foundation—turns 75. I’m immensely proud of the work that we’ve done to improve life in the Bay Area, including the community organizations we’ve supported and seeded and the donors we’ve partnered with to effect change on a great scale.
As you’ll see in our anniversary stories, there is an undeniable social justice throughline that begins with our founders and carries through our support for social welfare causes in the 1950s and ’60s, the disability rights movement in the ’70s, and the LGBTQ2SIA+ community during the AIDS crisis in the ’80s. That throughline continues to propel our work today to advance racial equity and economic inclusion. |
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“History is not the past,” the writer and activist James Baldwin said in 1986. “It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” It is with a fuller understanding of our history—our story—that I look ahead to the next 75 years, more dedicated than ever to seeing the Bay Area reach its full potential.
Cheers to 75!
Fred Blackwell
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