When Langston Hughes partied in San Francisco during the 30s

Learn about the fascinating celebrities who frequented San Francisco during the 1930s on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. during the next session of Come to the Water: Teaching San Francisco Black History in the theater of the Visitor Center of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park at Hyde and Jefferson Streets in the Hotel Argonaut building.

Sargent Johnson's artwork left a lasting imprint on the region during that period, including the signature fresco in the Maritime National Park; Garland Anderson broke barriers as the first black playwright to have his work produced on Broadway and the Wiley College debate team roared through the Bay Area to defeat both San Francisco Teachers College and the University of California in one weekend.

Saturdays session is based on the books Our Roots Run Deep: the Black Experience in California, 1900-1950, Vol. 2 and Come to the Water: Sharing the Rich Black Experience in San Francisco, which can be ordered at californiablackhistory.

A. Philip Randolph gave a speech in San Francisco which led to the integration of organized labor, and journalist John Pittman began his long career with a new newspaper The Spokesman, which had its windows broken by opponents.  

In the next decade, theologian Dr. Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman came to San Francisco to break the racial barriers in American religion.

John William Templeton, author of Come to the Water and editor of Our Roots Run Deep, leads the seven week course on the little-known central role of African-Americans in area history since the 1700s.