1906 Earthquake: Oral Histories from Black San Franciscans

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2024

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Listener Allison Pennell recently saw a museum booklet featuring archival photos of Black residents watching the fire that consumed the city after the 1906. It got her wondering how this specific community fared after the quake, especially given the entrenched racism of the time. Additional Reading: Stunning Archival Photos Of the 1906 Earthquake And Fire tanea lunsford lynx's We Were Here project Entire set of Afro-American Oral Histories, Pre-WWII Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Katrina Schwartz. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard and Katherine Monahan. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joshua Ling, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED. Every year on April 18th, at 513 in the morning,
0:09.3	San Franciscans gather at the corner of Market and Kearney streets to remember.
0:14.0	Once again you crazy folks have come together at this ungodly hour to remember and honor
0:19.7	the memories of those hardy San Franciscans who survive being tossed from their beds
0:24.5	117 years ago this morning.
0:28.3	People come dressed up in period costumes trying to inhabit the moment in 1906 when an earthquake with an estimated
0:36.4	magnitude of 7.9 brought devastation to the city.
0:40.9	Wednesday, April 18, 1906, 512 a.m. A great four shock is felt
0:47.1	throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco
0:50.2	St. Franciscans startled awake, only to find their city burning.
0:53.8	Fires rage and spread throughout the city.
0:56.8	They are not stopped until 74 hours later.
0:59.8	Many of San Francisco's finest buildings collapse under the firestorms.
1:04.0	Firefighters begin dynamiting buildings to create firebreaks.
1:08.0	But the fire kept leaping over the lines, traveling further west.
1:12.0	The great fire reaches Van S Avenue, facing the decision to blow his
1:16.8	city to pieces or watch it burned. Mayor Schmitz finally agrees to let the
1:21.6	Army create a massive fire break in the hopes that it can stop
1:25.5	the raging inferno Friday April 20th 1906 5 a.m. The fire break at Van S.
1:32.2	finally holds and the westward progression of the inferno is halted.
1:36.0	It took more than three days to fully put the fire out, and then Sanans took stock. Nearly 80% of the city had burned.
1:49.0	The great earthquake and fire of 1906 were devastating to everyone living in San Francisco at the time, including its several thousand black residents.
	...

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