The City of San Francisco was only two years old when five organizations – three churches and two Prince Hall Masonic lodges – began a great work:

"Knowledge gives to its possessors a power and a superiority over the uncultivated, real and substantial. The ignorant must give place and yield to the intelligent and educated. It is a law growing out of the nature of things.
"We are engaged in a great work: it is this, we aim to render ourselves equal with the most favored, not simply nominally equal, but truly and practically, in knowledge, energy, practical skill and enterprise. The past has been to us full of wrong and suffering; we are not content with our present condition; it remains for us to say whether we will continue in this position."

Revs. John J. Moore, T.M.D. Ward,
co-chairs education committee
Colored Convention of California

One hundred sixty years later, the Underground Railroad continues in San Francisco through these landmarks. That's why we're bringing together the most knowledgeable experts to create the first African-American Freedom Trail in the West.