Officials Plan To Bring HBCUs To Downtown San Francisco

The historically Black college experience is coming to The Bay area.

Last Friday, Mayor London Breed joined city and business leaders to announce new efforts that will bring Historically Black Colleges and Universities to downtown San Francisco. "Black 2 San Francisco" is the name of the initiative, and it is led by the Human Rights Commission, according to nbcbayarea.com.

The main purpose is to partner with historically Black colleges in an effort to bring educational programs to the city as local officials seek to draw in a permanent satellite campus to help revitalize downtown.

“In San Francisco, we are working to build partnerships that strengthen our leadership as a center of education, innovation and opportunity,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “By bringing HBCUs to our City, we can not only create a connection to empower our next of leaders, but we can also contribute to the revitalization of our City. I want to thank all of our private sector supporters, as well as USF, UCF, UCSF, and SFSU for their partnership in this work and continued commitment to San Francisco’s future.”

In fact, this summer, the commission will host HBCUs. Participating in the initiative to bring an HBCU to the city are the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and the University of California at San Francisco.

San Francisco State University and the University of San Francisco will use its housing for the summer programs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’m honored and grateful to see this coming together,” San Francisco Human Rights Commission Executive Director Dr. Sheryl Davis said in a statement. “After many years of planning, and months of seeding and working to create meaningful partnership, all the stakeholders are together to explore how we can connect San Francisco to the incredible talent that has historically been cultivated and supported by HBCUs. Our local higher education partners have ben actively involved and are central to this project. These efforts have been a long time coming from both community conversations to design the Dream Keeper Initiative and recommendations from the Reparations Advisory committee. I am heartened to see where the work goes from here.”