The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area is a center of African dance in the United States, which has evolved out of the black political and cultural activism of the 1960s. African nationals from Ghana, Congo, and Senegal established a strong community of dancers and drummers that built upon the Dunham dance legacy through Ruth Beckford, the late Katherine Dunham company member.

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area is a center of African dance in the United States, which has evolved out of the black political and cultural activism of the 1960s. African nationals from Ghana, Congo, and Senegal have established a strong community of dancers and drummers that built upon the Dunham dance legacy through Ruth Beckford, the late Katherine Dunham company member.

This article examines the history African-American gospel music between the 1940s and 1960s in the San Francisco Bay of Northern California, providing a musical context for the development of contemporary gospel that began during the late 1960s.