This collection of photographs of African Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area consists almost entirely of press photographs collected by James Abajian. Many of the photographs have captions provided by the press photographer or news agency. Photographers include Peter Breinig, Greg Peterson, Joe Rosenthal, Bill Young, Bob Hirschfield, David Randolph, Jerry Telfer, Art Frisch, Ken McLaughlin, and a few others. For a breakdown of subjects, see the series descriptions.

James de Tar Abajian (1914-1986), bibliographer and historian of African American history, was the chief librarian of the California Historical Society from 1949-1968. He was also director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Special Collection at San Francisco Public Library from 1969-1971. Abajian's writings include The Black Presence in San Francisco (1974) , Blacks and Their Contributions to the American West; A Bibliography and Union List of Holdings through 1970 (1974) and Blacks in Selected Newspapers, Censuses and other Sources: An Index to Names and Subjects (1977) . Abajian presented much of his significant documentary material on African Americans in California and the West, collected throughout his career, to The Bancroft Library in the 1980s. This material includes books, printed ephemera, manuscripts, sheet music, periodicals and photographs. His personal papers were donated to the library after his death in 1986 .

140 black and white photographs 140 digital objects

Publication Rights Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish photographs must be submitted in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.

Access Collection is open for research.