California African-American Freedom Trail

California African-American Freedom Trail

In 2018, activist, historian and publisher, John William Templeton, who has been working on his California African American Freedom Trail for 20 years, has announced the first eight sites to be marked on the trail.

Among the markers in the first group, says Templeton, who has support from The Travel and the Hotel Council of San Francisco, is one in the Western Addition that will commemorate the spot where the Manor Plaza Hotel once stood, where Flip Wilson gave his first comedy performance.

Other sites to be marked are: the Monadnock Building on Market Street, where Oscar Hudson, California’s first Black lawyer, worked; Sam Jordan’s Bar on Third Street, which Templeton says is California’s oldest Black-owned restaurant; the Third Baptist Church on McAllister, which was the site of (and was built with lumber from) a mansion of Captain Charles Goodall; a Ferry Building shoeshine stand where Aurelious Alberger, the first president of the Northern California NAACP, worked.

For more information contact Soul of America in Torrance, California. Phone: (310) 214-8554