Ingleside Racetrack

A one mile loop circumferences a cluster of homes and highlights the legacy of the neighborhood's past life as a racetrack. Ingleside Racetrack, now known as Ingleside Terrace, was a place for the wealthy to fulfill their gambling needs. After the racetrack held its last race and fulfilled its role as a refugee site for those affected by the 1905 San Francisco earthquake, Joseph Leonard filled the space around the track with beautiful Victorian houses crafted for the wealthy. When the first Black family to live in the neighborhood during the height of the Civil Rights Movement moved in, there appeared on their lawn a burning cross.

Ingleside Terrace, one of the rare neighborhoods in San Francisco California where houses do not share a wall, is a full neighborhood of middle class to upper middle class residences. It's past life as a gathering spot for the wealthy to enjoy racing sport continued its exclusive trend into development. Along with the beautifully made Victorian homes, each house has a front, side, and back yard. In a city packed as tight as San Francisco, yard space screams opulence. The neighborhood's early days held strict rules that "'no person of African, Japanese, Chinese or any Mongolian descent' would be allowed to buy or occupy any property" (Kamiya). By the 1950s, racial restrictions had been made illegal but when the first Black family moved into the neighborhood, some people believed that restrictions should still be held.

Cecil Poole and his family moved into the neighborhood when the Civil Rights Movement had grown to a substantial size. Their entry into Ingleside came with opposition. The realtor in charge of selling them their house of interest would not sell to the Pooles, eventually the previous home owner had to sell to them directly (LaBounty). Fortunately, they did not have to deal with bad neighbors. Charolette Poole, Cecil Poole's wife, shares that "[her] 'children have made some wonderful friends in the neighborhood'" (LaBounty). So when a burning cross appeared in their front yard, the Poole's quickly assured reporters that their neighbors were not the ones that put it there. In just a couple days of their story getting into the papers, a couple of teenagers confessed to the act and reports attributed the incident as a childish joke on the family (LaBounty).

Scottish use of a burning cross to warn of intruders inspired the Ku Klux Klan to use this symbol against Black and Brown people (Burek). It is now a symbol of racist hate speech (Burek). 'The burning cross at the Poole's is just some kids being dumb' is what the articles wanted San Franciscans to think. The best way to forget something is not to tell people to forget something, this only prompts further recall. Instead, telling another story about something will take the place of the previous story. A case of misguided teenagers having a laugh covers up the prejudice against Black and Brown people. It was in Ingleside Terrace's best interest to have the story retold to uphold its idilic suburban living space.

The Civil Rights Movement educated the public about what was wrong with racial segregation, but this was not enough to equal the playing ground for Black and Brown people. Beginning in the 1930s, Redlining was a practice that came from "Federal policies created by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC)" (Martin and Varner 3). These policies allowed people to receive loans to buy houses if their racially categorized regulations allowed it. The regulations did not allow those trying to buy a home in a high risk areas, where minority communities lived, to receive a loan for fear that the loan would not be payed back. The high risk areas were colored red on a map and the practice was termed redlining (Martin and Verner 3). Redlining has since been removed yet there are still majority Black neighborhoods and majority White neighborhoods. Explicit acts of racism have since seen a decrease while systemic racial issues continued to thrive. With explicit racism now being attributed to only a couple extremists, it was easy to think that racism had been eradicated and therefore Black and Brown people have the same opportunities as White people.

Ingleside Terrace is not a neighborhood that was redlined. It is now occupied by mostly upper middle class White and Asian residences. Living in this space is seen as their personal choice and if someone does not receive these opportunities, they simply did not make the right choices. This story reinforces the stereotype that Black and Brown people do not make good choices and are paying the price for it (Martin and Verner 6). While in reality, Black and Brown people are starting fifty meters behind the starting line when everyone else is on or past the starting line. Growing up in a family that can provide for you basic needs and more will almost guarantee a similar circumstance for their children in the future. These circumstances mirror the same living conditions of the past.

I was given the benefit of growing up in Ingleside Terrace and I am prospering from what I have been given. My grandparents had immigrated from China to find a better life for themselves and were able to provide a good starting ground for their children. I am not white and, obviously, I am not treated as if I am white. Yet I am able to have very similar benefits that many White people have. Realizing this has caused questions of how various systems have been able to benefit Asian people, how I am continuing to perpetuate problematic systems and ways of thinking, and what I can do about that. Asian people are in a forgotten gap of racial education; on one hand, we have what White people have, on the other hand, we are still seen as foreigners who do not belong in America. I am learning how to counter racism through the mistakes of White people but not all of these lessons apply to me because I am not White. The best I can do with what I am provided is to do my part to tell the true story that Black and Brown people must live with. After all, my house had a front, side, and back yard.

Burek, Josh. “What Are the Origins of Cross-burning?” The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Dec. 2002,

www.csmonitor.com/2002/1213/p25s04-wonq.html. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Kamiya, Gary. “How S.F. neighborhood sprouted where horses once raced.” San Francisco 

Chronicle, 9 July 2021,

uhttps://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/article/How-S-F-neighborhood-sprouted-where-horses-once-16302613.php

Ingleside Terrace is built on top of a grand horse racing track that was closed shortly after the 1906 earthquake. Joseph Leonard started the Urban Realty Improvement Co. and developed the neighborhood, turning the track into Urbano Drive. “This unique street, in the shape of a giant oval, traces the contours of a long-vanished horse-racing track that was once one of the most splendid in the West”. The developers wanted to create an upscale neighborhood and they thought restrictions that said, “‘no person of African, Japanese, Chinese or and Mongolian descent’ would be allowed to buy or occupy any property” would create that space. Leonard had created a wonderful neighborhood for my family and I to live in but that does not mean we should forget about its exclusive history.

LaBounty, Steve “Woody”. “Streetwise: The Burned Cross.” Western Neighborhoods Project - 

San Francisco History, March 2004, www.outsidelands.org/sw25.php.

In front of the Poole family’s Ingleside house stood a burned wooden cross. As the first African American family living in Ingleside Terrace in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement, there came racist backlash. Cecil Poole, who was among the first few African Americans to serve in the California government, had to deal with “restrictions that made sure homes were properly kept up, that chicken-pens were kept out, and that any non-white person was disallowed from moving in” when living in the neighborhood. The Pooles were well received into the neighborhood. Poole confidently stated, “I know this much–I’m sure none of my neighbors would do this sort of thing”. 

In the 18 years of living in Ingleside Terrace, I see that the Poole’s are still among the few African Americans that lived in Ingleside Terrace. This is related to the restrictive rules that tried to keep the neighborhood white and San Francisco’s redlining. Although today’s racism is not as obvious as the burning of a cross, the lack of Black Americans living in Ingleside Terrace is proof that we have not moved away from the same discriminations.

Martin, L. L., Varner, K. J. Race, Residential Segregation, and the Death of Democracy: 

Education and Myth of Postracialism. Democracy and Education, 25 (1), Article 4, 2017. 

https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol25/iss1/4.

The effects of redlining have not escaped our cities. “Practices such as redlining, restrictive covenants, and discrimination in the rental and sale of housing not only led to the residential segregation by race but also continue to shape Whiteness while framing narratives about what constitutes Blackness” (2). Martin and Varner describe the disparity as a direct result of a false thinking they call white racial frame, a way of attempting to understand how racial privilege and segregation is perpetuated. The common thinking of many White Americans is “understanding one’s self as moral, just, kind, and incapable of being racist, consequently, leads to a perception that racism is the problem of a select few and not a systemic and systematic approach to being” (5). These White Americans remember that there used to be extreme racism but believe that they now live in a post-racial society.

The Ingleside Terrace and their present day residences are evidence of the disadvantage that certain people of color must experience. Majority of the residences are White or Asian because these residences have been able to take advantage of the schooling system, the top choice for jobs, and a higher starting ground.