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Janis Ian’s Talking Gay Marriage-21st Century-File Sharing Blues
As the sun sets on June and Gay Pride Month, today marks the 43rd anniversary of The Stonewall Riots. The event officially marked the beginning of the movement for gay liberation, the time when...
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Occupy Turns One
Hats off to West Coast artists Tom Morello, Jello Biafra and Michelle Shocked for joining Lee Ranaldo and Co.at New York’s Foley Square Park last Sunday for the kick off of the one year anniversary...
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Make Way For the Handicapped
There is a section in Keep on Pushing which addresses how the songs of black power made way for the songs of liberation of other oppressed groups: women, homosexuals, brown, yellow, and red folks, as...
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Keep on Pushing (Again)
Everybody’s humming “Keep On Pushing” again, thanks to it being the soundtrack to a new ad, but there are a few details that even LeBron’s smart phone doesn’t know about the wonderful song that also...
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We Insist! Freedom Now
Two albums credited for fusing the politics of black liberation with the sound of freedom are Sonny Rollins’s Freedom Suite—the first experiment in 1958—and We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite—...
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Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was a long road to the third Monday in January when all 50 states will observe the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the day named in his honor in their own unique ways. Largely owed for making...
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Congratulations Alejandro Murguía
Activist, writer and educator Alejandro Murguía is San Francisco’s new poet laureate. Following an incantatory opening by Jorge Molina, Shaman of the Mission, remarks by poetic elder, Roberto Vargas,...
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“Sister Rosa”
February 4 is the birthday of Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist remembered for refusing to move to the back of the bus: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in the name of the desegregating public transit,...
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Earth Day and Esso
When 80,000 barrels of oil spilled into the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel in January of 1969, the crude-splattered water, beaches, and birds along the California coast in its aftermath became the...
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Never Forget: Emmett Till, born July 25, 1941
The story of Chicago’s 15-year-old Emmett Till (born today in 1941), murdered while on summer vacation in Money, Mississippi, was among the events in the mid-‘50s that mobilized the Civil Rights...
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RIP Pete Seeger (1919-2014)
The folksinger, activist, songcatcher, banjo-picker, environmentalist, family man and non-violent resistor Pete Seeger was inspiration and forbear to any man or woman who uses their songs for economic...
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Marcus Books: Keep It Lit in the Fillmore District
If buildings could talk, the Marcus Books property on San Francisco’s Fillmore Street, the onetime “Harlem of the West,” would tell a tale of two cities for over 50 years. Once the jazz club Bop City...
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History: Rosa Parks Born Today
February 4 is the birthday of Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist remembered for refusing to move to the back of the bus: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in the name of the desegregating public transit,...
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Malcolm X: Malcolm, Malcolm–Semper Malcolm
On this day in 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated, shot mulitiple times at the podium of the Audubon Ballroom where he was about to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Thousands flocked to...
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Kandia Crazy Horse: Ready For the Country
Kandia Crazy Horse is on a crusade to become the first black woman to be invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Noting that the oval office, hockey, tennis, “and even show jumping” can claim high-ranking...
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For Earth Day: The Story of Van Dyke Parks & The Esso Trinidad Steel Band
For Earth Day, I invite you to read the story of how composer and arranger Van Dyke Parks came to produce the 16-man steel pan band, Esso Trinidad, following the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969....
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For Cinco de Mayo: The Mexican American Rock y Roll Connection
It all started with Ritchie Valens and “La Bamba” and The Champs and “Tequila” in 1958, though it would be another decade before Santana took Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” and freaked it out in 1970....
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Stolen Legacy of Marcus Books Must Be Returned To Owners & The Community
In February: Mayor Ed Lee (center) of San Francisco signs the historic landmark designation for 1712-1716 Fillmore Street, former home of Marcus Books and Greg and Karen Johnson (also pictured). Since...
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First-Ever Howard Zinn Bookfair Convenes In San Francisco: Marcus Books is Back!
Today’s first-ever Howard Zinn Bookfair convenes at San Francisco’s historic Mission High School with a list of right-on authors as long as your arm so you’re going to have to check the program to...
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We’re On The Freedom Side
There’s a new version of the labor standard, “Which Side Are You On?” going around: Sung at the Black Lives Matter and Blackout Coalition actions, it’s also been used as the intro and outro marching...
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