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 The St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church faces eviction next
week from its home in the Fillmore District, a neighborhood best
known for its jazz roots that in its heyday was dubbed "the Harlem
of the West."
"It's the most urgent example of the push-out of the African
American population right now during our housing crisis and our
affordability crisis," said San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, who
is advocating for the church in its eviction fight.
The church, founded by Archbishop Franzo King and his wife Reverend
Marina King in 1971, is well known throughout the city as a place
where worshippers play instruments and sing along as well as a
leader in social justice movements for decades.
 The Kings were inspired after watching the legendary jazz musician
John Coltrane perform. The church, effectively a one-room
storefront, is adorned with paintings of Coltrane as well as images
in which Jesus and Mary are black.
The West Bay Conference Center, which owns the property, said church
leaders have failed to pay rent for the space for a year.
"You can't run a facility on promises, on prayers, and on saying you
are a historical institution," said Amos Brown, a Center board
member and NAACP official in San Francisco.
Negotiations with the center about back rent abruptly ended in
December, said King, who is going to court on Tuesday to try to stop
the eviction. The church has the money to pay the outstanding rent,
but the center will not accept it, he said.
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The church's struggles are part of a broader exodus of
African-Americans from San Francisco. The shift started amid
1960s-era urban renewal programs that targeted low-income, often
minority neighborhoods for redevelopment, and continues in today's
tech-boom.
The city's share of black residents has dropped by more than a half
since the 1970s, according to census figures, to 6.1 percent in 2010
from 13.4 in 1970.
If the eviction goes through on Wednesday, King said he would likely
not be able to find a new location in ever-more expensive San
Francisco.
"We can probably find places to hold a service," he said. "But to
put a chapel together or a sanctuary [...] I don't think that's
going to be the easiest thing to do."
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon
Bernstein and Lisa Shumaker)
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