#barbara-dane-documentary

#barbara-dane-documentary

C.C. Chatman offered a personal touch to the community by inviting me to her home for a meal, saying, 'Tell me what you want to eat.' Her pork chops and sides rivaled anything from my hometown of New Orleans.

Samara Joy sings with old-school phrasing and a modern calm that makes the Great American Songbook feel freshly alive. Her tone is warm and centered, her control is ridiculous, and the swing is the real flex, every line shaped with patience and purpose.

Drivers were delivering packages in deadly heat with no air conditioning; part-time employees, the majority of UPS' workforce, have been unable to receive benefits. Wages aren't rising at the same rate as the cost of living.

Big Mama Thornton exuded uncompromising intensity. Her voice conveyed struggle and defiance, fury and hurt, like few others. She was a Black, gay multi-instrumentalist who refused to let a racist society or a rapacious industry confine her.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the house during 'Like a Prayer' at Totally 80s last weekend. A reflection, a release, a reminder of what it meant to live, love, and hold onto each other in a time that asked so much of this community."

Join us for a free night of DJ sets and a lively night market at "Pickin' on the Polk" After Hours on April 25, 2026, from 6 PM to 10 PM.

This film is my story in my own words, told the way I've always wanted to tell it. It's about finding my voice, keeping it alive, and sharing the journey with the people who've been part of it all along.

The concert features 'Field of Sorrow,' a new work by Juhi Bansal, which sets translations of landays, women's poetry from Afghanistan, for soprano, cello, and piano.

It's so important when women's rights are under attack, to oppose fascism in all its forms and demand the Trump regime must go. Women like freedom.

In 1968, a "good girl" is squeaky clean. She studies hard, follows the rules, gets into college and doesn't embarrass her parents. She doesn't lie or drink or do drugs. She doesn't participate in the Summer of Love or experiment with any of its alternative ways of living. She definitely doesn't have premarital sex, get pregnant and upend everyone's meticulously laid plans for her future.

Louise Pearl's one-woman show Pass the Nails and Shame The Devil recounts the experience of her family's ordeal building their own house amid Oakland's 1980s crack epidemic as her strong-willed, Louisiana-born mother and gather a motley crew of men to make this dream home into a reality.

Often referred to as "The Rockin' Chair Lady" after one of her early hits, Bailey was the first woman to sing with a jazz big band, touring with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1929-33. Along with Louis Armstrong, she played an essential role in shaping Bing Crosby's jazz-inspired phrasing, which is to say, American pop music.

As, Dr. Bill Lipsky noted in his 2022 remembrance for the San Francisco Bay Times, Campbell had been diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) the previous October, becoming just the 16th person in the city to be diagnosed with the rare form of skin cancer that was suddenly popping up among young men. During those early days of the epidemic, before doctors identified HIV and AIDS, patients like Campbell were described as having "gay cancer."

burdened by loneliness, depression, and the incessant needs of others, pours herself a stiff drink and steps up to the noose she's hung from the rafters of her airy farmhouse. Then the phone rings: her ungrateful brother, making demands. She tries again-another ring, another request, this time from a friend. She plays the piano, doesn't she? Will she join a group of fellow-amateurs for a charity gig? Twice thwarted, Beth sighs, says yes, and gets on with the business of living.

On May 16, 1998, the federal government used 600 pounds of explosives to destroy Marie Harrison's home, Geneva Towers, the largest residential implosion in California history. It was one of three detonations that rattled her community and inspired her life's work. The second came on June 18, 2008, when her activism helped light the fuse to implode San Francisco's old Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power smokestacks, long decried as an environmental and health hazard.

As, Dr. Bill Lipsky noted in his 2022 remembrance for the San Francisco Bay Times, Campbell had been diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) the previous October, becoming just the 16th person in the city to be diagnosed with the rare form of skin cancer that was suddenly popping up among young men. During those early days of the epidemic, before doctors identified HIV and AIDS, patients like Campbell were described as having "gay cancer."

Shortly after being elected, Barbara Lee unveiled a 10-point plan for getting Oakland back on track. Point number three was to establish public-private partnerships to "improve Oakland's economy and increase public safety," and point number seven was to "generate entrepreneurial and philanthropic investment in Oakland." So far, Lee has been delivering on these promises. Since being sworn in last May, Lee has helped raise millions of dollars from private companies and foundations to support city services, programs, and civic initiatives.

"I didn't do anything great, but I participated in something great. I think that's how we all felt,"

Belinda Ricklefs, a ballroom dance and Lindy hop instructor in the Bay Area since 1975, and the founder of Sunday Swing at the Lake Merritt Dance Center and Live Oak Park, passed away on Nov. 7, 2025, at her care home in Pinole. She was 89. Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Belinda lived a long and varied life. She started dancing at age 5, and did her first jitterbugging as a teenager at Friday night socials in a church basement. She graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Asian History (and was a Phi Beta Kappa member) in 1957.

When Norman Sylvester was 12, long before he garnered the nickname "The Boogie Cat" or shared a stage with B.B. King, he boarded a train in Louisiana and headed west, toward the distant city of Portland, Oregon. He'd lived all his life in the rural South, eating wild muscadine grapes from his family's farm, fishing in the bayou and churning butter at the kitchen table to the tune of his grandmother's gospel singing.

He sings the names of the dead haltingly, as though he is reading them off a screen-which, judging from the recording-studio footage in the song's lyric video, he probably is. The song is about the news, but it is also, perhaps unintentionally, about the moment of lag when we absorb the names and images, when we try to assimilate atrocity into narrative.

Taj Mahal looked out at his fans and stated the obvious: This is off the charts. Indeed, it was a very special night for the legendary Berkeley-based blues musician, who was being honored by an numerous high-profile musicians in concert at The Masonic in San Francisco on Saturday (Feb. 21). The role call featured a number of other Bay Area greats including Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Joan Baez and Van Morrison as well as many other notable artists