Author: Ms Brandy Collins

Brandy Collins is a writer and self-proclaimed Professional Aunty full of Scorpio magic living in the Bay Area.Brandy is a 2019-2020 cohort graduate from the Maynard Institute for Journalism, a correspondent for Oakland Voices, and contributing writer for Oaklandside, Berkeleyside-Nosh, Chronicle Datebook, Thrillist, KCET, The Bold Italic and SF Weekly. She’s also the funny one in the group chat and has a drink named after her. Follow Brandy on twitter @MsBrandyCollins or Instagram @story_soul_collecter
Memories of a Black San Francisco, Pt. 1: Personal Great Migration
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Memories of a Black San Francisco, Pt. 1: Personal Great Migration

A three-part series about my upbringing and growing up... to see a new version of Black San Francisco During the great migration, my grandmother and her siblings sojourned with thousands of Black families. In hopes of escaping Jim Crow laws of the South, hundreds of Black folks packed up their lives in search of the promise of a better life in California. The shipyards and factories were full of jobs that could create a new reality for themselves. During the 70s in the Ingleside neighborhood where my grandparents and their siblings resided, the population was 60% Black. San Francisco used to be bustling with Black-owned businesses in the 70s and 80s according to my mother. My aunts and cousins living either in my grandmother’s Ingleside home would each know how to clean a kitchen to ...