09/16/2024
San Francisco, CA - Ted “Teddy” Fang, 61, passed away Monday morning in his Dolores Heights home leaving behind his husband of 27 years, Tony Thompson. Ted is also survived by his mother, Florence Fang.
Ted is best known for his many contributions to the city and communities of San Francisco where he was born and where he lived throughout his life. Ted was focused on improving the health and well-being of his community. Most recently, he advocated for urban farming at federal/state level as President of San Francisco Farm Bureau and since 2014 directed the Bayview’s Florence Fang Community Farm – the city’s largest sustainable farm. The Florence Fang Community Farm is the city’s first farm certified by USDA as a model for national effort in creating food sustainability.
In 1990 Ted chaired Mobilization against AIDS, a California-based national advocacy and lobbying organization working to safeguard civil rights and to assure adequate treatment for all HIV-infected individuals. He went on to co-found SF Hep B Free Campaign in 2007, provoking Asian Pacific American (APA) communities to test themselves for Hepatitis B. In 2010 the organization launched a new ad campaign, “Which One Deserves to Die,” which gained national recognition when it was featured on the PBS NewsHour, in the New York Times, and was a winner in the 2010 CLIO Healthcare Awards. The success of this campaign encouraged other cities to launch similar hepatitis B awareness campaigns.
A brilliant student, the Lowell High and UC Berkeley ethnic studies graduate became a leader in the Bay Area’s newspaper industry. He negotiated the 1999 acquisition of the SF Examiner, pioneering as the nation’s first Asian Pacific American publisher of a major metropolitan daily. He oversaw the difficult transition of the daily from a paid to a free circulation business model while sustaining its ability to be an avenue for some of the community’s major voices. Ted was publisher of one of the nation's largest free distributions of neighborhood newspapers, the San Francisco Independent and San Mateo Independent.
Returning to his family’s Chinatown roots, in 2023, Ted published the archives of AsianWeek.com, 30 years of print and online content from the “Voice of Asian Pacific America,” a weekly his father started and that Ted published with his mother and brother James from 1979 to 2009.
Ted was the second son of John and Florence Fang, a devoted brother to 24-year BART Director James Fang and his wife Daphne, Douglas Fang and his wife Angela, and uncle to his nephew Sean and niece Allison.
The family shares their deep appreciation for the many who inspired Ted’s devotion to making life better for all communities and neighborhoods.
