About Us
Where the universe connects - Billie Holiday singing at the Manor Plaza Hotel, as doorman Flip Wilson request stage time at Leola King's Blue Mirror. Dexter Gordon hanging out at JimBo's Bop City having chicken and waffles. While Diz, Lionel, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane the Duke, Count and King Cole all swing through town for gigs on the hill and dine at Gilmores, Virginia or the Plantation Supper Club.
The Fillmore in the 1940s and 1950s was a pre-dominantly Black and thriving neighborhood dotted with businesses of all sorts; restaurants, pool halls, theaters, shops and a host of local services—most, African American owned—Boasting two dozen active nightclubs and music joints within its two square mile corridor. Although it has been commemorated in songs, poems, and lauded in Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", few people today know of the rich history of the Fillmore and its music and cultural legacy. Largely because all landscape except for the fabled rock venue 'Fillmore Auditorium', originally named and operated by African American businessman Charles Sullivan long before "rock" became popular, vanished abruptly and so thoroughly due to the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1949 and efforts of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in the 1960s.
Prepare for the revitalized return of African American influence. Planet Fillmore Communications tells the story