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Crosscurrents

One African American Family, Half A Century Of Experience In San Francisco Public Schools

Lee Romney
/
KALW
Elsie Stewart, 77, Emmanuel Stewart, 56, and Shaquill Stewart, 25, talk about their memories in San Francisco's public schools for KALW's series on the educational experiences of African American students and families here.

Some of San Francisco’s African American families have attended public schools in the City for three generations. They share their personal stories as part of the ongoing series, “Learning While Black: The Fight For Equity In San Francisco Schools.”

Today, we meet the Stewarts. Elsie Stewart retired a decade ago as a supervisor at the Four Seasons Clift Hotel in Union Square, where she worked for more than 40 years. Her son, Emmanuel, is an elementary school principal. And grandson Shaquill? He works in a San Francisco public school now too, while studying radio on the side. All attended traditional public schools here, and all still live in the City.

"As I got older, and we were bused out of our community, that's when school became not as enjoyable. The busing situation for us in the 70s, it was more of supporting somebody else's notion that black children should be integrated with other children and not attend the schools in their community anymore." - Emmanuel Stewart

Click the play button above to listen to their stories.  

This was reported with the support of the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, a program of the University of Southern California Center for Health JournalismIt originally aired January of 2019.