Ted Fang, a well-known figure in San Francisco’s Chinese community, died Monday at his home, reports Chinese-language daily Sing Tao. The cause of death was a heart attack. He was 61.
Fang, the second son of Chinese American businesswoman, publisher and philanthropist Florence Fang, served in a variety of prominent roles, including one-time editor of the San Francisco Examiner, which was bought and then later sold by the Fang family.
Fang was also known for his work on health advocacy. In the 1990s he co-founded an organization dedicated to battling the AIDS epidemic. He later went on to found San Francisco Hep B Free which works to tackle Hepatitis B in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
In more recent years, Fang made a name for himself as an advocate for urban agriculture, overseeing the Florence Fang Community Garden in the city’s Bayview neighborhood. The garden is the largest sustainable development farm in San Francisco and the first urban sustainable development farm in the city to be certified by the federal Department of Agriculture.
In an interview with the San Francisco Standard earlier this year, Fang celebrated the garden’s success, attributing it to the work of the neighborhood’s Asian and African American residents.
Fang graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco and went on to major in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to his time as editor for the San Francisco Examiner, Fang also worked for the San Francisco Observer, Asian Week and the Independent Newspaper Group.
Fang’s elder brother, James Fang, died on August 14, 2020, at the age of 58. He was the son-in-law of Huang Ju, the former chairman of the BART board of directors. Fang’s younger brother, Douglas Fang, one-time COO for the San Francisco Examiner, died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 38.
Fang is survived by his husband of 27 years, Tony Thompson. Funeral arrangements are in progress.
