Happy 94th Birthday BB King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015)! The “thrill” returns when we think of you.
2019 Commemoration of the First American Landing at Old Point Comfort, Fort Monroe National Monument, Hampton, VA
It was a gift to be present at the National Day of healing, what the state of Virginia, the first colony in what would become the Union and then the United States, calls its “American Evolution Challenge,” similar to what Bryan Stevenson suggests in his Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice and its Legacy Museum, from Slavery to Mass Incarceration. The link between what is past is present lies in the truth, a truth these days of mourning and retribution suggest. This is something current Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam acknowledged each time he spoke this historic weekend.[1]
This nation’s violent and racist past is something elected officials whose own ancestry link to “The First American Landing” also acknowledged. From Governor L. Douglas Wilder (66th Governor of Virginia) to the current Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, to of course the Tucker family, descendants of the first child born and Christened in captivity, William Tucker, child of Isabella and Anthony Tucker enslaved Africans from Angola traded for provisions at Point Comfort, now Ft. Monroe National Monument, a former military base in Hampton, VA.
I arrived the Wednesday night into Newport News airport, 15 minutes from where I was staying. I hadn’t known NASA was in Hampton as well. Hampton’s a military town, the largest perhaps in the nation. Kind of makes sense: First Landing, First Colony, now first state to recognize its role in the enslavement and exploitation of African labor and do something tangible about it whether this is housing development or educational and economic equity. Scholar Michael Eric Dyson, Ph.D., who gave the keynote addresses that Sunday said he had to commend Gov. Northam for being a standup white man whose politics mean tangible change for all citizens, especially African descendants in his state. Northam (who is seeking a second and final term) acknowledged the debt Virginia owes to its African citizens and as mentioned is enacting legislation to rectify this.
African history does not start with slavery, however, American history does. This is why national public acknowledgement and legislation like that enacted by Virginia Gov. Northam to change the way children learn American history, is so important. The American Evolution Challenge is for this nation to not just acknowledge the great sin or stain; the challenge is to invest resources into this work of repair or reparations. The events I parachuted in for were a part of a larger initiative which began earlier this year and continue past the National Day of Healing Sunday, August 25.
The current governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia said that Sunday that he’d visited with Indigenous people to return land rights. “The story of Virginia rests on subjugation of others: Africans and Native Americans. . . . In order to heal we have to acknowledge the crimes of the past.”
MAAFA San Francisco Bay Area’s 24th Season
This 24th Anniversary of the MAAFA Commemoration it would be great for Mayor London Breed to join us. After all, the work of commemorating African Ancestors of the Middle Passage is physically centered at Ocean Beach, Fulton at the Great Highway. This year, the date is Sunday, October 13, predawn.
We have an opportunity to have an exhibit this year in the lobby at the African American Art and Culture Complex; however, we need sponsors to help with printing costs. At canvas print starts at $40. Let me know if you can help. We would also like to print a calendar and perhaps stationary at gifts for donations and more commemorative buttons. Next year will be our 25th Anniversary and we would like to host a symposium. Perhaps ASALH might consider hosting its annual conference in San Francisco. This year the 104th Annual Meeting and Conference is October 2-6, 2019, in North Charleston, South Carolina. Congressman James E. Clyburn, 6th District, South Carolina is the Honorary Conference Chair and Council Award of Special Recognition Awardee. Visit www.asalh.org
We also want to have a pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama in November to visit the Equal Justice Institute’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum, From Slavery to Mass Incarceration. June is the Poor People’s March on Washington. It would be great to go for the Year of Return. The American South is the site of great harm for descendants of the Maafa. Everywhere one walks is a site of bloodshed. Bryan Stevenson, founder of EJI is the subject of a new HBO documentary that is having a screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Jamie Fox portrays the Civil Rights attorney and is supposed to attend the MVFF. MAAFA San Francisco Bay Area will host two screenings (October-November), one in San Francisco and the other in Oakland. Dates and times will be announced.
On the fly:
Oakland International Film Festival Sept. 19-29;(Wanda’s Picks Interview with David Roach, Artistic Director of OIFF, http://tobtr.com/11491173) San Francisco Green Film Festival Sept. 24-29 (tickets free for students); Midsummer Night’s Dream at Marin Shakespeare Company, Sept. 5-29, features an all People of Color Cast; Lower Bottom Playaz’s present: Iya Iya: House of Burning Souls, an all women production featuring Ayodele Nzinga’s Glory, Cat Brooks’ Tasha and Kharyshi Wiginton’s Too Much Woman for this World, through Sept. 22 at The Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, in Oakland. Pushfest’s 6th Annual Home Season at ODC Theatre in San Francisco, Sept. 20-22. Mill Valley Film Festival Oct. 3-13, 2019 Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive: Marlon Riggs Retrospective: No Regrets Celebration https://bampfa.org/program/no-regrets-celebration-marlon-riggs African-American Shakespeare Company present William Shakespeare’s Othello, directed by Carl Jordan, starring L. Peter Callender, October 12-27, at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre. 609 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor San Francisco. Visit African-americanshakes.org. 9th Annual African Global Trade Conference in Sacramento, Oct. 15-17, 2019 https://www.panafricanglobaltradeconference.com/ Martin Luther King Freedom Center and the Elihu Harris and Barbara Lee Lecture Series presents: Ari Berman, Sept. 28, 7 p.m. at the Oakland Marriott, 12th and Braodway, Oakland. Free. https://dothebay.com/events/2019/9/28/barbara-lee-and-elihu-harris-lecture-series-presents-ari-berman-tickets
Artist Shines Light on Women’s Unpaid Work, Sept. 19 – Nov. 2
Counting the Hours: Art, Data, and the Untold Stories of Women’s Work
New art exhibition by Sawyer Rose and The Carrying Stones Project opens at Code & Canvas, San Francisco, September 19 and continues through November 2, 2019. Gallery hours are Tues. & Thurs. from 1-6 p.m., Sat. from 12-3 p.m. and by appointment. Free admission. To listen to an interview with Sawyer and one of the featured women on Wanda’s Picks Radio, Sept. 8. She is the second guest, the first is Raissa Simpson, Push Dance Company, who joins us to talk about Pushfest. https://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2019/09/06/wandas-picks-radio-show
Programs (Exhibit and all events admission are free.)
Opening Reception
Thursday, September 19, 2019, 6-9 p.m.
Counting the Hours Public Participatory Event: Crafting Balance
During ArtSpan Open Studios Weekend 3
Saturday and Sunday, October 26 & 27, 2019, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Visitors to the exhibition can weave their own work data into a community-created data visualization tapestry.
Free admission
Closing Reception
Saturday, November 2, 2019, 6-9 p.m.
At Code & Canvas, 151 Potrero Ave., San Francisco 94103
Free admission
Faye Carol in Free Community Concert at Freight and Salvage
Miss Faye Carol & the OG All-Stars Celebrating the Legacy of East Bay Black Artists, Sept. 23, 7 p.m. at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.
Martin Luther King Freedom Center and the Elihu Harris and Barbara Lee Lecture Series presents: Ari Berman, Sept. 28, 7 p.m. at the Oakland Marriott, 12th and Braodway, Oakland. Free. https://dothebay.com/events/2019/9/28/barbara-lee-and-elihu-harris-lecture-series-presents-ari-berman-tickets
Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights, and a Reporting Fellow at Type Media Center. His stories have also appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Politico and The Guardian. He is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, NPR, PBS and C-Span. Berman’s work has earned him an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media and a place on the FD200 – 200 awardees whose work embodies Frederick Douglass’s enduring legacy of social change. His frequent speaking topics include voting rights and racialized voter suppression; American politics; the state and future of democracy; civil rights; the intersection of money and politics; the 2020 census
1619-2019 Lecture, Film, Cultural Series continues at UC Berkeley
400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Injustice Series continues following a powerful and successful 1619-2019 Commemoration Symposium, Friday, August 30, 2019 at International House, hosted by Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. The events continue through 2020 as a part of a initiative, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ announced to “acknowledged, study and discuss the meaning and lasting impact of a despicable chapter in our nation’s history” as well as “to honor and celebrate African American’s extraordinary intellectual, social and cultural contributions to our nation” for the 2019-2020 academic year. The next event is this Thursday, Sept. 19, with California’s Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. https://400years.berkeley.edu/events/sept-19-conversation-californias-first-surgeon-general-nadine-burke-harris
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has seen firsthand the health effects of childhood stress. As a pediatrician and medical director of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, she began studying how childhood adversity translates to poor health in adulthood. In 2013, she founded the Center for Youth Wellness in order to push pediatric medicine to consider this correlation as she continued to address toxic stress in children in underserved communities in San Francisco. In January 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her as the state of California’s first Surgeon General.
Berkeley Public Health Dean Michael C. Lu, who served as the Director of the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2012-17, will engage Dr. Burke in a candid discussion about her career in pediatrics and health advocacy, the connection between childhood trauma and health outcomes, and what we can expect during her appointment as the first Surgeon General of California.
The event will be followed by a light reception.
This talk is part of the 2019 UC Berkeley School of Public Health Dean’s Speaker Series. This event is co-sponsored by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy.
This free event is now SOLD OUT. This talk will also be recorded and broadcasted live. To access the online livestream, visit our Berkeley Public Health homepage(link is external) on the day of the event or follow this link(link is external)
Where is Home?: A Community Town Hall on the Housing History and Future of Oakland’s Black Residents, Saturday, September 21, 2019 – 12:00pm – 2:30pm, at the West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland
From homeless, displacment & foreclosures – when crises hit, they often hit African Americans hardest. Whether it’s generational ownership or currently unsheltered, COME & SHARE YOUR STORY AT THE BLACK STORY BOOTH. Join the conversation about affordability, community land ownership, legal support, the Permanent Affordability Fund and more.
Panelists:
- Marika Regan ACCE Action
- Zachary Murray, OakCLT, Darleeen Flynn, City of Oakland Dept. of Race & Equity
- Chanee Franklin Minor, City of Oakland Rent Adjust Program
- Xavier Johnson, Centro Legal
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Facilitated by Vanessa Bulnes, ACCE Action and the Black Housing Union
Register at tinyurl/OaklandBHU. Call 601-329-3750 for more information.
Black Panthers Retrospective at Life is Living Festival, Sat., Oct. 12, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Going to Life is Living this year? Curious to learn more about the Black Panthers? Come in to the West Oakland Library for a Black Panthers Retrospective! Presented by the People’s Kitchen Collective, The Black Panthers Party, and the West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland, 510-238-7352.
Also join the Free Breakfast and Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panthers Free Breakfast Program from 10am – 12pm in the Defremery Park parking lot. The Life is Living Festival goes on until 7pm.
The San Quentin Project: Nigel Poor and the Men of San Quentin State Prison Aug. 21-Nov. 17
A new exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) showcases a unique collaboration between the contemporary artist Nigel Poor and the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. The San Quentin Project: Nigel Poor and the Men of San Quentin State Prison uses photography to capture rarely seen glimpses of daily life behind the walls of the prison, a minimum-maximum facility in the Bay Area that currently houses more than four thousand men. The exhibition features visual documents made during Poor’s collaboration with the inmate population, presented alongside rare photographs from the prison’s own archives.
After premiering at the Milwaukee Art Museum earlier this year, The San Quentin Project receives its sole West Coast presentation at BAMPFA, inviting Bay Area audiences to reflect on the role of the carceral system in their own community. The museum will host multiple public programs that highlight the role of San Quentin in the Bay Area’s own history, including a colloquium on Saturday, October 19 at 1:30 p.m. that brings together leading UC Berkeley faculty from the fields of law, social welfare, and literature, along with Poor herself. Based in San Francisco, Poor returns to BAMPFA on Monday, October 28 at 6:30 p.m. to co-deliver a lecture with Michael Nelson, a former San Quentin State Prison resident whose essay about photography is included in the exhibition. Visit https://bampfa.org/program/san-quentin-project-nigel-poor-and-men-san-quentin-state-prison
Urban Cycling 101 for Adults & Teens
Saturday, October 19, 2019 – 1:00pm – 3:00pm at the West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland
Join Bike East Bay for this free classroom workshop. Learn rules of the road, crash avoidance maneuvers, and tips for having more fun on every bike ride in the East Bay.
Details and registration at BikeEasyBay.org/education.
Free Saturdays at deYoung Museum features: “MaestraPeace” Panel and Book Signing with the Muralists Book Talk at de Young Museum
September 28, 2019, 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Muralists and Angela Davis at Koret Auditorium
MAESTRAPEACE stands five stories tall, vibrantly illuminating the walls of the San Francisco Women’s Building, inside and out. The artwork is an homage to their work, which provides urgently needed services to all women, from rape crisis to immigrant services to community organizing of all kinds. In these challenging times, both mural and building are beacons of hope and strength for our communities. These murals are a jewel of the Mission District, a historic treasure on a National Heritage Building, and a magnet for thousands of visitors from all over the world. Although this monumental mural has been widely photographed and reproduced in many books, articles, and videos, it is finally in a stunning book with a foreword by Angela Davis.
Buy the book ahead of time online or purchase it at our store.
Free Saturdays are about celebrating art and this city that we love. Explore the permanent collections, take a guided tour, get inspired to create art of your own at our art-making station.
About the Panel
Miranda Bergman is a veteran of the community mural movement, transforming urban space by painting in the streets for over 40 years. Her murals stretch from various sites in the United States to Mexico, Central America, and Palestine. She loves how murals weave together the bright strands of artistry and social activism. She teaches visual arts and muralism to many constituencies. Her artwork and essays have been published in over 30 books and appears in several films. In addition to collaborative work, her studio work includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed media works.
Edythe Boone is a painter whose work spans five decades, both in New York and California. She has made monumental scale murals, as well as her own paintings and drawings. Boone is fiercely independent and inventive in her portraiture and collage motif work, and has been a teacher for children, youth, and senior citizens, inspiring all to tap into their inner world to find images and expression. She has received many awards for her community and art activism.
Susan Cervantes is an artist, educator, veteran of the SF community mural art movement, and the founding director of San Francisco’s Precita Eyes Muralists. Established in 1977, Precita Eyes is one of only a handful of community mural arts centers in the United States, and has created over 600 murals locally and internationally. Through a collaborative art process, Cervantes is dedicated to social change by transforming the environment and lives of the participants through the creation of community murals. Susan continues to practice the collaborative process as a key to community awareness and positive transformation.
Meera Desai is an artist, teacher, and proud mother of two boys. In the last 25 years, she has painted and facilitated over 25 public and community murals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Meera happened to fall into mural making when she volunteered to help paint one with artists and residents at Westside Lodge, a residential mental health facility in San Francisco. While Meera loves to paint, she also appreciates the reciprocal energy of teaching others. She has taught people aged 2 – 65 in schools, colleges, and museums.
Yvonne Littleton is particularly strong in graphic designs, portraits, and technical illustrations. As an award-winning advertising artist, Yvonne has implemented her expertise in stage design and backdrop lighting, including that used in the Rolling Stone’s World Tour. Her mural designs have also helped promote several non-profit organizations. Yvonne has married her passion for the arts with her love for health education. As a true believer in the healing powers of the arts, she continues to use her art as a tool to enhance well-being in various communities.
Tania Estrada is originally from Mexico City and came to the United States in 2012. She studied Industrial Psychology and received her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology, including study in Criminal Psychology. Her work experience includes human resources, recruiting and hiring for many companies, and as a psychologist at an orphanage. Tania first came to The Women’s Building as a volunteer, and eventually became The Women’s Building’s first Volunteer Coordinator, where she used her human resources skills to create a formal recruitment and training process. In 2017, Tania was named Program Director and she continues her work with The Women’s Building today.
Karen Topakian received her MFA in filmmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. Before graduating in 1987, Karen began working at Greenpeace as a nuclear disarmament campaigner and remained until 1991. For 16 years, she served as the executive director of the Agape Foundation-Fund for Nonviolent Social Change that awarded $1.1 million annually to California-based grassroots nonviolent social change organizations. In 2010, Karen founded Topakian Communications, a freelance writing and communications consulting business that works primarily with advocacy organizations. She served for 9 years as chair of the Greenpeace, Inc. board of directors and currently serves on the board of the Greenpeace Fund.
Ticket Information
Free.
Seating is limited and first-come, first-served. Seating tickets will be distributed an hour before the lecture begins in front of the theater.
[1] It was an opportunity for Northam to clear a personal closet littered with a recently surfaced black face image alongside a person in a KKK hood on his college yearbook page. Which one is he, is the question asked. The governor did not remember the photo and said neither. However, he did recall darkening his face to impersonate Michael Jackson. Participating in behaviors that denigrate African people is something young southern white people do. It is a part of the air they breathe. Why question the air quality if your lungs are full? To resist is an act of consciousness only a few enlightened ones ascribe to. Most, like Northam just get caught up. For the story read
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-republicans-thought-labeling-democrat-ralph-northam-gov-blackface-would-help-them-now-they-think-otherwise/2019/09/06/85045cbe-d02c-11e9-b29b-a528dc82154a_story.html?noredirect=on
