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in the southeast corner of San Francisco, where most of the cities, factories, warehouses and junkyards are, Ah, stubby finger of land pokes out into the bay. At the end of it, a hill rises like an abscess from the stink and the noise. And on the hill

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live some of the most disadvantaged citizens of this or any other American city. The place is called Hunter's Point. It has come to symbolize urban life at its worst, isolated from the sources of economic and political power remote from the social and cultural resources of the

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city. Hunter's point is a volcano of problems that has already erupted in violence since then. A new spirit has taken hold in Hunters Point. People there are striving to ensure that such a tragedy does not repeat itself. Assignment for the award winning report to the West

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produced in the community Interest by the documentary department of K. R. O. N. T. V. Tonight Hunters. Point of view from the hill. Unless you live or work their chances, How you've never been to Hunter's point. It's deep in the Bayview district and out of the

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way corner of the city south of Army street and east of the freeway. Yeah, Hunter's point isn't the neighborhood you'd pass through on your way to somewhere else. The Economic Opportunity Council calls the Bayview the Southeast Poverty District. But the area is not all slum or

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ghetto. Much of a view is integrated and comfortably middle class with his much view and more sunshine than anywhere else in the city. Oh, yeah, but the citizens on the sunny slopes near the freeway are illa de, for they live in uncomfortable proximity to the worst

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poverty in San Francisco. The dividing line is third Street, where the trucks rumble incessantly in and out of the industrial butcher town. Okay, across Third Street, the neat row houses become shabby tenement, and above them looms the hill, where 700 families, nearly all of them black,

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live in crumbling old public housing units. This he is Hunter's point, the building's air, a hangover from the Second World War barracks, built by the Navy to house shipyard workers instead of telling them down. 20 years ago, the navy gave the structures to the city. Most

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are rat infested, structurally unsound and generally unfit for people to live in income on the hill is 25% below the city average, one in five family survives on public welfare The hell is devoid of the normal neighborhood conveniences. What used to be a shopping center is

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now an abandoned, partly burned out ruin. A liquor store is the only place of business surviving on the hill, so a working mother must take a bus to Third Street for a bag of groceries or trudge up and down the steep slope on foot on Lee,

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a small, minority owned private car. The rest depends on the one bus that calls wearily up the narrow, winding streets of the hill. Getting from Hunter's Point toe almost anywhere else in the city is a long, tedious Siris of crowded Busses. You know, two generations have

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grown up in the stagnant isolation of Hunters Point. Their playground has been the baron litter choked slopes of the hill. Yet all around them lay a better world they knew only from a distance patrol three. I'm gonna be 10 98 from 20th and Valencia. Inevitably, there

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is an atmosphere of fear and tension on the hill. Some spectacular acts of violence have occurred here, giving the neighborhood, um, or sinister reputation than it deserved. But those who live within sight of the Hill are afraid. And those who live on the hill, our hostel

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for they have a longer acquaintance with Fear. Car. We yeah, point mail at type 35 years. 55 Hospital bill. There's no way results on in three. The youth feel that the police are occupying in this community, that they're being oppressed by the police and that the

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police in while enforcing the law, often times break the law. Most of the officers don't understand the black community. Most of the officers don't understand black people living here, and there's a degree of fear on both parts. Do what you cancel the photo. 12. Loyola That's

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moved by the owner. Palmer Jackson is a police officer, but he wears no uniforms. He is part of the department small community relations unit, and his beat is one of the toughest in town, the hill at Hunters Point. I think they consider me a pig, just

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like they consider all other officers pig. But I have been accepted out here in the community because I've been out here for approximately two years now, and they know me pretty well. I spend much of my time walking the streets talking to the merchants and kids

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on the street. They do come to me with problems. Uh, they do asked for my assistance. They do wanna be a law abiding citizen. I don't receive as much support from the police department as I would like to have. And this is primarily because many of

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the officers in positions of authority don't really think that this is true approach to crime prevention, that community relations is a sham. But we can show our success by a decrease of crime of the Hunters Point community. It's a very calm community and very conservative community,

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I would say, judging from its leadership being matriarchal ghetto wisdom teaches that no one is a Freas, a white man or a black woman. This is a legacy of slavery when a black woman as concubine, wet nurse or chief of the kitchen could achieve great influence

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in the master's household. In Hunters Point, as in most black communities, the burden of public responsibility has been shouldered largely by black women. The current leader of the local matriarchy is Mrs Eloise Westbrook. She is chairman of the Joint Housing Committee, a remarkable grassroots organization that

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has demanded and gotten real decision making power over urban renewal on the Hill. Right, I think, is he in Harris Park? Work through the influence of women like Mrs Westbrook rests in their ability to forcefully articulate the needs and attitudes of the community. So that is

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the question that we're going to be. Really, I'm talking about because I do feel like that the people in Hunter Storm had been very, very patient. They they have been kind enough not to burn it down. And I think that's beautiful. So all the time in

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these ghettos you find where people have burnt the ghettos up. But hunters point has held on, and we're not gonna burn it down until we get that beautiful housing. And then if we don't get the rent, I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm not. Don't make

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no comment. But times were changing. In Hunters Point and new voices, masculine voices are expressing their own view from the hill. We'll hear from some of them in a moment. The war on poverty is still a long way from over in Hunters

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Point. But if the E. E. O. C. Has done nothing else, it has nurtured a new source of leadership in the community. Adam Rogers is a former hoodlum with a police record. He is also on organizer for the E. E O. C in Hunters Point and

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a leader of an emerging group of militant young black man. His close confederates Sylvester Brown, works for the Hunters Point Redevelopment Agency. Both are anti establishment, whether it be black or white. Adam Rogers sees black power as a youth movement and sympathizes with other militant groups.

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But he advocates that the young take care of business themselves and not lose control of the community to outsiders. I don't think the deposits of the infiltrated 100 point like they would like to our leadership in show that we're just a militant way, go out and

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do things like transportation assistant program that we just got through not too long ago, but the purpose of the programs for young people to come into our area and work on these Busses where we've had a lot of problems that in the past, because we've been

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threatened, that community would pull their services out, there's one case they did actually stopped. The bus is This is one of the highest paid training programs in the country. Face to 15 hours. We fought all the way Foot took its approximately about a year and one

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half to get that program through because of political hang ups that we had to go through. But crime attracts more young people than politics in Hunters Point and Rogers brand of Black Power is held suspect by the adult community. And it is the black establishment, not

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the youth, who command the respect and attention of government. As I said before, I am not unmindful of the fact that we are having a problem of lawlessness with young people, particularly those from 13 to 18 years of age. My own generation. We have a similar

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problem in the North Beach area. The community itself got a little aroused way have to go to the political system because you can't just bully people all the way with with muscling. I see that we're definitely moving towards something. The people don't realize that we've got

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to start somewhere, but these women look at it. This kid way have to prove ourselves got onto them. But to the society, I think that slowly, that the young man was actually take over on this form, and I think it's coming up in the future. But

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community responsibilities mean little. Two men struggling just to survive, and the gains and steady employment in Hunters Point have not been impressive. Each morning and evening, the Hunters Point E. O. C. Office becomes the hiring hall for non union dockworkers. It's an innovation, and it's better

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than welfare. But it's not the kind of work that offers the security or the time for community involvement. Yet once given the resource is the people of Hunters Point know how to solve their own problems. When you go see a proposed a health center for the

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community, the general reaction was, it was more of the same old stuff. They were just simply dressing it up in new clothes. It was still a double system of health care, and the community felt like it wanted something better if there's any way possible. Dr. Arthur

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Coleman, a neighborhood physician, heads the Hunters Point Bayview Community Health Project. It is a unique approach to the health problems of the community. Once we really found out what the needs were and what the problems were. Then it was simple enough to come up with a

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new, innovative idea. They needed baby sitters. They needed a way to get to doctors. They wanted freedom of choice, like everybody else, to pick their own doctor. We attempt Thio assist them and doing this or in overcoming these factors by the use of health team. But

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the function of the teams to go out into the field to knock on doors, to top the people. Let's find out what their problems are. Try to motivate them to the extent that they will now on their own, begin to seek healthcare where no free services

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available, the health project will pay for a needy patients. Private care. The approach is entirely unique. The first of its kind anywhere in the nation. 18 to 2 years old house and other things related to that, not just baby. I think I'll have a tremendous social

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impact. In fact, for the first time, the community is now beginning to talk about lack of resource is they feel now the need for a hospital. We're using our own talent. Our own resource is our own manpower to do things that we think can help this

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community. And we're not interested and will not be dictated by planners from outside of the community. For this community, God, this sense of self determination is a growing force, even among the traditionally conservative black clergy of Hunters Point. Maybe some of you satisfied and said that

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I got shoes and you got shoes. And when I get to heaven, I want to put on my shoes. I'm gonna walk all over God's hand. But but there are some who want their shoes Now. There are some who might be satisfied toe get the heaven

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and have their milk and honey. But there are some who want their milk and honey mouth. I'm thoroughly convinced that we are in the midst of a revolution way of the five nonprofit sponsoring groups involved in redevelopment of the Hill. Three our churches. And there is

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no way to underestimate the impact of urban renewal on the future of Hunters Point. You see here a model and I will explain the model, and it's more than just a model because William Keller, project manager for the redevelopment of the Hill and the neighboring Butcher

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Town industrial area, we can promise So this is Hunter's point, a community that is known in San Francisco as, uh, temporary war housing on many other of the ills and problems of urban blight. But we feel that we have planned a Newtown or new city. The

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first phase of the hill will constitute some 700 new homes. Another important new component in this is that the land will be owned by people in the community. I won't call them apartment building. Each of these really can be looked upon as a townhouse, and as

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they're laid out on these culture sacks against the side of the hill, they bring a character to this hill of a single family kind of living. All of the landscaping that you see pictured here is new in the core of the area, which we call our

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central activities Area is a complex of shopping, childcare facilities, community activities, building a green place with fountains and gardens, and the same thing that other people in San Francisco in other neighborhoods have had for a long, long time. Redevelopment promises mawr than just new housing. Its

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plans blatantly appeal to the middle class yearnings of most people on the hill. The planners can deliver the housing, but can they deliver a new way of life? Are the people of 100 point going to be able to come back, Stay live in the new community

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that's been planning for them? Um, our partner in this venture who have supported us in this commitment and this belief? This paper plan that they've seen for the last three years has been the Bayview Hunters Point Joint Housing Committee. And let me say something else that

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everybody on that hill cannot pay. No. $125.185 dollars and no. $200 for apartment we have worked along with to really change things on the hill will take leadership, organization and money. In other words, it will take political power. And if riel power resides anywhere in Hunters

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point, right now, it resides in the Joint Housing Committee. Through it, the people cannot only express their desires. They can enforce them to an unprecedented degree. The dynamic force behind the committee is Mrs Eloise Westbrook. The plan I have begged people to go down to the

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supervisor to stand up, to testify, even to those committees where you get the money from and nobody there, baby. I wind up down there alone, standing there, pleading for this community that we have good schools, good facilities and better jobs. And who stand there? Holly? No

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Bible. Western. Now, where is your feet? Where is T O C R? Another kind of see, Where are you now? You tell me that E o. C. Might get angry because we don't have bodies to do this job. I I am just a chairman. But let

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me tell you something. This housing is nothing compared to many young people in this community who need jobs. And let's be realistic way women on that. Most in this committee cannot carry it on. We're gonna need me. Men know how to talk to the labor union.

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Men who know how to go out and talk to these industrial and talk to all these people in this neighborhood trying to get these jobs for these young people and quit fooling yourself. Two or three old women is. Sylvester says it's not gonna do the job.

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It's gonna take me. It's gonna take power, and we don't have We don't have. Okay, No man in here participate in this mess unless he gets paid for it. And the agency got a disadvantage because the cooks are sitting up downtown getting paid $1500 a month

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toe beat us out of it. And that's all it is. Do it. The Chamber of Commerce. They've got nothing to do but sit on their families and beat us out of it. The Housing Authority ain't got nothing to do but create stumbling blocks to keep us

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from up on the hill. All of these problems, Miss Westbrook can't solve them. And only we need damn probably gonna get solved. Some of us gonna some of us men. I'm gonna have to say that we're going to get out in front and do this job.

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But we're gonna be paid for doing it because white people don't work for free. And I don't know why they think we gotta work for free. You know, white people are crazy. They think black folks don't need no money. Local bread costs me the same. Baby.

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Do a white man with little else but the force of her personality, Mrs. Westbrook has moved her community forward. And with renewal of the Hill underway, she moves on to the new Model Cities programs which promises to uplift the entire Bayview area. But the young men

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of Hunters Point are jealous of Mrs Westbrook's power, and they snipe enter whenever they can. Great question. Sorry. All your favor. You sign it. Voting? Uh huh. What do you say, Sylvester? You tripped on through me? I'm suffering. You ain't sorry. That's why I know men

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involved because you women talk to them. Uh, Sebastian E. I think you do mean it. I think you do. Me. But, you know, um, I want a favor. You kind of voting. Yeah, I have it. So, in a moment of final view from the hill, a

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new generation is growing up on the Hill of Hunters Point. Presumably, these Children will not spend much more of their youth in squalor. But the future belongs to those with the power to shape. And many wonder just whose Children will inherit the benefits of urban renewal

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in Hunters Point. If the people can keep hold of their neighborhood and control its development. They will not only own the view from this hill, they will have proven something important about how to fight poverty. Assignment four is produced in the community Interest by the documentary

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department of KRNV TV Watch for our next report to the West on assignment for