For These Black Bayview-Hunters Point Residents, Reparations Include Safeguarding Against Rising,...

Arieann Harrison accepted her calling at her mother’s funeral, sitting in St. John Missionary Baptist Church in the San Francisco shoreline community of Bayview-Hunters Point.

“You find out a lot about yourself at a funeral,” said Harrison. Her mother, Marie Harrison, passed away in 2019 at 71 from lung disease. Harrison says her mom believed the illness was tied to pollution from a nearby shipyard, where she once worked and lived close to.

At St. John’s, person after person shared reasons why they valued Harrison’s mother.

She organized, marched and protested for decades, pushing for a shipyard cleanup — even chaining herself to the fence outside the site. Marie Harrison famously said to neighbors, officials and anyone who would listen, “We’ll never surrender.”

Harrison realized it was time to stand on her mother’s shoulders, taking on her legacy of advocacy.