San Francisco's Fillmore District 1940-1960s by David Johnson

San Francisco's Fillmore District 1940s–1960s by David Johnson

Johnson, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, was the first African-American student of Ansel Adams. In Adam’s school, he was advised to photograph his own neighborhood and document the people and places, which were most familiar. David Johnson dreamed of becoming a professional photographer. In 1946, he read an article in Popular Photography that Ansel Adams was appointed the director of photography at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute). Johnson immediately wrote to Adams seeking enrollment in the class and mentioned that he was an African American. Adams sent him a telegram saying the class was full and that his race did not matter, but his name was placed on the list in the event someone cancelled. Within a week, he received another message indicating there was a place for him in the class.

Johnson arrived in San Francisco in 1946 shortly after his nineteenth birthday. Minor White, a prominent instructor at the school, met him at the Ferry Building in San Francisco where they took the streetcar to Ansel Adams’ house. Johnson stayed there until he found a place to live in the Fillmore district. 

Johnson diligently documented the street life and jazz-club scene of San Francisco’s Fillmore district, a neighborhood that developed from the Second Great Migration of Southern blacks to the West Coast during World War II. Johnson focused his work on socially relevant issues facing urban communities, especially African American. He photographed numerous subjects in the Fillmore neighborhood, including social groups, musicians, children, students, shopkeepers, religious leaders, and daily events. Many of these photographs were created during that time.

Johnson is an important chronicler of African-American life in San Francisco during the mid-twentieth century. His images from a career spanning more than sixty years are in the collection of the Library of Congress. Now in his eighties, he still actively photographs and continues to make an enduring contribution to the history of American photography.

[top inset image]
Couple Dancing  1952;
David Johnson (b. 1927);
gelatin-silver print
Courtesy of Smith Andersen North, San Anselmo, California

[bottom inset image]
Lincoln and Boy  1963;
David Johnson (b. 1927);
gelatin-silver print
Courtesy of Smith Andersen North, San Anselmo, California

Photography is not permitted.
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