Did you also know … that GLIDE supported the Black Man’s Free Store? In the era of love, GLIDE was the fiscal sponsor of the Black Man’s Free Store, a collective which aimed to uplift the Black community. The free store was established in the Fillmore and focused on distributing food, clothes, furniture, and appliances directly to low-income Black community members.

It began when Roy Ballard, a young Black civil rights organizer and member of the Diggers, pitched the Free Store to a GLIDE intern, Larry Mamiya in 1967. The free store opened in May of that year.

Free Store Volunteers described the free store in a 1968 publication of GLIDE’s monthly newsletter as a place where people can become themselves.

“What is a free store? Its first principle is to give whatever can be obtained to those who will take. This means clothing, furniture, appliances, food. In a ghetto area where physical and emotional needs are critical, where American Opportunity is an outworn joke, where the ravages of racism are as real as the pavement, a free store means revolution. Much more than the distribution of free goods is involved. In the case of the Black People’s Free Store, the fundamental revolutionary function is to communicate love to fellow human beings. With love — feeling, understanding, respect, communication — people are allowed to believe in themselves, to love themselves, to become themselves.”

– Venture, a GLIDE publication

The Black Man’s Free store ran by volunteers became the go-to place for the community to get necessities they needed, no questions asked. This is similar to GLIDE’s operation today where anyone needing services — be it an ID voucher, clothing, a meal or three — can come get it, no questions asked! Our Walk-In Center provides new clothes like coats, socks, or blankets to any community members in need. Additionally, our Harm Reduction Team and our Integrated Service Hub provides direct health resources to our community members.

The organizers of the Black Man’s free Store highlighted that the store is free for everyone, not just Black community members. It was a safe space for sex workers and wayward youth in the Fillmore district. Organizers spoke proudly in their interview for GLIDE’s publication Venture regarding the way the store builds trust among community members. “When a person realizes that he can always get what he needs when he needs it, that the store is not going to empty or disappear in a day or two, he usually begins bringing extra items back, feeling that other people, Iike himself, aIso need. Instead of a maze of fears about acquisition and possession, people find themselves feeling responsibility towards other people.”

In 1969 the free store moved to 689 McAllister Street, and expanded to become the Black Man’s Free Store Medical Clinic. In a 1971 interview with the SF Examiner’s Janet Ellis, a young black clinic volunteer, spoke to the clinic’s ability to “give tests for VD, shots, sickle cell anemia screening” and more. Nobody knows when the Black Man’s free Store & Clinic ended, but articles from the Oakland Tribune from 1973, and an LA Times story from 1975, claim that the program lasted at least six years.

Black Man’s Free Store interviewees spoke about having food available for free for the low income and local sex workers in the Fillmore during their 1968 interview. It was within a year that GLIDE began our Free Meals Program. What began as two meals a week, has grown into our 2,100 meals served to our low-income and homeless community on a daily basis.

From these roots, GLIDE’s programming has grown into the network of support we all know about. Today, someone can come to GLIDE and find a warm meal, clean clothes, unconditional legal aid, health services, and so much more. While the Free Store was a radical act, GLIDE has worked to institutionalize practices like these in our community with our deeply rooted values of transformation and inclusivity.