Reflection

by Kheven Lee LaGrone

Danny Duncan and Michael Gene Sullivan’s musical “Every Saturday Night: A Harlem of the West Musical” brought back my earliest memories of growing up in the Fillmore. Back in the day, people often dismissed the Fillmore as “a ghetto,” but it was one of the few neighborhoods in San Francisco where Black people were allowed to live.

I have fond memories of the Fillmore. I remember the young Black people who immigrated from the South and worked hard to buy property. I learned the importance of being entrepreneurial from the countless small family businesses throughout the neighborhood.

Fillmore had opportunities. My aunts moved to the Fillmore from Virginia. At the time, Danniebelle Hall played piano for our church. My aunts joined Danniebelle’s singing group and they toured the world. The Fillmore gave them that opportunity.

My father taught me how to make money in the Fillmore. At the barbershop, the barber would offer me a nickel to sweep the hair off the floor. My father had me bargain for more. The whole barbershop cheered me on. I loved the money, but I loved the attention more.

The Fillmore was my world: family, friends, church, school. It was also a place of Black pride and Black validation. I remember James Brown’s “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” blaring from a passing car. My cousins sang it as well. At the time, I was too young to know what he was singing about. So, I learned Black pride just as I was learning that I was Black.

Playwright Danny Duncan was a prominent presence in San Francisco’s Black Theater Movement. This movement was national. According to playwright Marvin X, the revolutionary plays from that movement inspired and enlightened the Black community. This new Black consciousness led to the Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers.

Danny Duncan includes Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in “Every Saturday Night.” However, I wonder why he does not include more about the Black Theater Movement or the Black Power Movement.  Perhaps it would be too confrontational for a musical.

He did show that the Fillmore became the target of gentrification, euphemistically called “urban renewal,” “redevelopment,” or “revitalization.” First the city and developers trashed it in the media to justify razing it. Then they re-wrote the history of its Black culture by reducing it to just good jazz and clubbing. This “history of cool” became a marketing point for the new development. Even today, I hear about the Fillmore as once being a cool place for entertainment.

That marketing appears to be working. A prominent Black artist told me that he moved to San Francisco in 2008. He was surprised to hear that San Francisco once had a prominent and thriving Black population.

“Every Saturday Night” is set in the living room of one of the Victorian houses in the Fillmore. The Victorian house is a perfect metaphor for the Fillmore’s gentrification. Outsiders want to tear it down; a neighborhood group wants to preserve it.

In the 50s, those Victorians were cheap and nothing special. Multiple families and generations shared the houses. My uncle and aunt tore down their large Victorian and built a 1960s plain, box-like four-unit property in its place. Today, neighborhood groups would fight to preserve these houses.

“Every Saturday Night” was five years in the making and long anticipated, and many members of San Francisco’s Black theater community attending the festive opening.

The musical lives up to the hype.

“Every Saturday Night” provides the show San Francisco needs. Since 2000, the city has been losing its soul, becoming shallow and materialistic. “Every Saturday Night” brings back the soul—at least for a night.

The Fillmore wasn’t erased. It’s in my soul, too.

 

“Every Saturday Night: A Harlem of the West Musical” –based on a story by Danny Duncan, book by Michael Gene Sullivan & Danny Duncan, music & lyrics by Danny Duncan, directed & choreographed by AeJay Antonis Marquis, musical direction by Othello Jefferson, scenic design by Sarah Phykitt, lighting by Spence Matubang, costumes by Tiersa Nureyev, produced by SFBATCO, Artistic Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr., at A.C.T., The Strand Theater, San Francisco.

Info: act-sf.org – to November 1, 2026.

Cast: Isaac Barnwell, Velina Brown, Devin A. Cunningham, Kaila Dyson, Jacob Henrie-Naffaa, Ron Johnson Jr., Darryl V. Jones, Janelle LaSalle, LaRae Mays-Hardy, Trevor Miller, Jon-David Randle, Cathleen Riddley, Rob Robinson, The T, Imri M. Tate, Jocelyn “Jojo” Thompson-Jordan, and RJ Wayne.

Banner photo: Velina Brown & Darryl V. Jones) clash over who gets to call the Fillmore home in SFBATCO’s “Every Saturday Night.” Photo: Alexa LexMex Treviño @lexmexart/SFBATCO