Educator, Giants fan left a mark on Bay Area
Renel Brooks-Moon remembers one of her last walks through Menlo Park with her mother, Juanita Brooks, who died Feb. 18 at age 96.
During that 2022 walk, Juanita Brooks, who moved to the Bay Area in the early 1950s from the Jim Crow South, began pointing out houses that she and her husband, Nathaniel, couldn’t buy in 1966 because they were Black.
“They dealt with all kinds of horrible, humiliating things, but they were taught to hold their head high,” Brooks-Moon said. “And that’s the reason why education became so important to both of them — because that’s the way out. That’s the way to fight racism. That’s the way to fight sexism. You’ve got to get your education on.”
The family went on to make an impact on the Bay Area. Nathaniel Brooks was the first Black principal in San Francisco, and Renel Brooks-Moon is a radio host and the popular public address announcer for the San Francisco Giants. But Juanita Brooks, who taught English and typing in San Mateo County and mentored hundreds of students of color, was the rock of the family — a prodigious volunteer in the community, an enormous Giants fan and a beloved teacher for many students.
Juanita Kathryn Watson Brooks was born May 3, 1926, in Texarkana, Texas, the only child to Arthur and Gertrude Watson, a pipe factory worker and homemaker. She strived as a student, and in 1933 broke the color barrier in town, chosen by her second-grade teacher to ride on a truck in the Christmas parade.
She graduated from Prairie View A&M University, taught English in rural Arkansas, married fellow teacher Nathaniel Brooks and in 1950 moved to San Francisco. Brooks had three children — Nathaniel Jr., Renel and Daphne — and moved to Menlo Park and taught in the Ravenswood School District before retiring in 1989.
Nathaniel Brooks in 1966 became the first African American school administrator in the Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County, and two years later broke the color barrier in San Francisco — becoming principal of Polytechnic High School, where he founded the district’s first African American studies programs.
Brooks-Moon said her parents’ relationship reminds her of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.
“It was a true partnership,” Brooks-Moon said. “They were just a well-oiled machine. As a couple, as parents, as educators, as community members.”
Brooks-Moon said her mother was a Giants fan from the moment the team arrived from New York in 1958. She stoked her children’s love for baseball, and would text her daughter before games. Willie Mays and Willie McCovey were her favorite players — and she got to meet them both.
“She said to (McCovey), ‘I remember your major league debut; you went 4-for-4,’ ” Brooks-Moon said. “She broke it all the way down. He looked at me and he goes, ‘Oh, yeah, I see where you get it from.’ ”
After Nathaniel Brooks died in 2003, Juanita Brooks continued in the family home on Shirley Way in Menlo Park for almost 20 more years and developed some of her closest friendships, enjoying morning walks, dancing classes, finding any excuse to host neighbors and volunteering at the Social Heritage Club, East Palo Alto Senior Center and the scholarship committee at St. John Baptist Church.
While the family experienced racism in those earliest years, the neighbors in later years rallied to assist Nathaniel Brooks when he was ill, then worked together to help keep Juanita Brooks in the family home. When she moved to an assisted living center in Redwood City in November, Brooks-Moon said neighbors threw a housewarming party for her.
“Fifty years later, all the neighbors took care of mom, and helped us keep her in the house for so long,” BrooksMoon said, talking through tears. “Her story is the American story.”
Juanita Brooks is survived by son, Nathaniel Hawthorne Brooks Jr.; daughters, BrooksMoon and Dr. Daphne Ann Brooks; five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and a niece.