Black Cuisine Festival bridges generations

gave a sneak preview of next March's food extravanganza during the Bayview Neighborhood History Day at George Washington Carver Elementary School.   Rev. Isadore Hall, who organized the taste treat, said the last retention of culture is food. "When we lose our food, we've lost all our culture," he said during the History Day panel on the legacy of the Black Cuisine Festival.

Dr. George Davis, founder of the Bayview Multipurpose Senior Citizens Center, started the festival in 1980 after asking some youth about signature African-American dishes.  Since then, the festival has closed off the block of Yosemite Avenue at Third Street each March.

One of the dishes Saturday was tomato cobbler, done by one of the seniors.  However, the teens came up with sweet potato and greens egg rolls.

The Neighborhood History Day was an outreach event by the Bayview library committee to draw attention to the campaign to outfit the new Bayview branch library, set to open in 14 months.

The late Mrs. Elouise Westbrooks, a pioneer in affordable housing and access to health care who made a national impact, was honored by practically all of a host of speakers, including her great grandson.

Mrs. Espanola Jackson discussed her long history as an activist for community improvement, including her role as leader of the California Welfare Rights Organization in the 1960s.

Jim and Louise Toliver shared their business history, running a popular teen destination and a gas station, while he was one of the first black police officers in the city and she was the first black parking enforcement officer.

Pat Coleman discussed her father, the late Dr. Arthur Coleman, one of only ten doctors nationally in the 1950s who also had a law degree.  Coleman practiced medicine in the Third Street area for 54 years and built one of the first comprehensive clinics, introducing the concept of a "medical home" back in 1960.  Coleman also chaired the largest black thrift institution in the nation, Transbay Federal Savings and Loan, one of the reasons that the Bayview neighborhood has among the highest home ownership ratios in San Francisco.

Among the fruits of that neighborhood were artist Malik Seneferu, whose grandmother was a barber on Third Street for 50 years; real estate broker Diane Wesley Smith; electrician and union leader Ronald Lewis and filmmaker Kevin Epps, who received a standing ovation for his films about Bayview/Hunters Point. Epps premieres his fifth documentary FamBam at the DeYoung Museum on Nov. 25.

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