Podcasts about east bay yesterday

Today's episode of Africa Today is preempted by special programming for KPFA's 2025 Spring Fund Drive. KPFA presents a special edition of East Bay Yesterday, recorded live in West Oakland. To support our mission, please donate here or call (800) 439-5732 (800-HEY-KPFA).   The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

Despite being one of Oakland's most iconic buildings, the history of the Fox Theater is filled with unsolved mysteries. In preparation for his ongoing tours of the nearly century-old structure, architectural historian J.M. Marriner has been digging into the archives and looking for answers. This episode features our conversation on everything from arson and art theft to mushrooms growing in the balcony carpet.  If you want to see more photos related to this episode, check out my SF Gate article: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/fox-theater-oakland-landmark-mysteries-19988446.php You can contact J.M. Marriner to get a copy of his booklet about the history of the theater and I also highly recommend checking out one of his tours: https://www.instagram.com/jmmarriner/ Subscribe to the Oakland Heritage Alliance email list to find out about upcoming dates: https://www.oaklandheritage.org/ Don't forget to follow the East Bay Yesterday Substack for updates on events, boat tours, exhibits, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode: For 112 years, Children's Hospital in Oakland has been a foundational part of keeping our local communities healthy and happy. UCSF is proud to celebrate its award-winning care at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland, throughout the East Bay, and around the Bay Area. Thank you to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland for being a proud sponsor of East Bay Yesterday.

About 20 years ago, Joey Santore went from illegally riding freight trains across the country to working as a “train man” for Union Pacific. His official duties, which included driving the trains, gave him a unique look at the decline of the East Bay's industrial sector and blue collar workforce. Spending time in decaying factories and train yards also sparked his interest in nature, as he saw plants and animals returning to repopulate these post-industrial spaces. Eventually Joey finally got fed up with his corporate railroad bosses and quit working on trains in order to focus full-time on nature. His wildly successful podcast and video series Crime Pays, but Botany Doesn't now attracts legions of fans from all over the world who tune in to hear Joey share his vast knowledge of plants along with a healthy dose of socio-political analysis thrown into the mix. Although Joey no longer lives in West Oakland, he returned for a visit recently to check on “the illegal garden” he left behind. While he was in town, we caught up on everything from his craziest memories of the train years to his observations about the Bay Area's many fascinating ecosystems. Don't forget to follow the East Bay Yesterday Substack for updates on events, boat tours, exhibits, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode: For 112 years, Children's Hospital in Oakland has been a foundational part of keeping our local communities healthy and happy. UCSF is proud to celebrate its award-winning care at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland, throughout the East Bay, and around the Bay Area. Thank you to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland for being a proud sponsor of East Bay Yesterday. East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. More details here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/freight-trains-plants-and-a-vanishing-world/

Although Oakland has one of the highest concentrations of lesbians in the country, the history—and impact—of this community is relatively unknown. Lenn Keller tried to change that by creating the Bay Area Lesbian Archives, a wide-ranging collection of photographs, activist materials, meeting notes, videos and more. In this episode, Keller shares stories of why some of the world's first lesbian of color groups formed, discusses the thriving network of collectives that existed here in the 1970s and 80s, and reminisces about some of her favorite lesbian bars of the era. [Note: This interview with Lenn Keller originally aired in 2018. Although Lenn Keller passed away in 2020, the Bay Area Lesbian Archives is still going strong. The organization recently moved its vast and impressive collection of rare materials and books from a storage unit into a beautiful home in the East Bay hills, the former house of pioneering lesbian writer and activist Elana Dykewoman. Also, Bay Area Lesbian Archives has an exhibition and event series currently happening at Eastside Arts Alliance. Stay tuned after the segment with Lenn Keller to hear a new interview with BALA members Dr. Kerby Lynch and Sharon de la Pena Davenport, who discuss their upcoming events, the importance of intergenerational organizing, and gathering community materials for a time capsule.] To see photos and get links related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/these-stories-still-matter/ Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode: UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals are committed to supporting the health and development of all children. At UCSF's Pediatric Heart Center, doctors are using cutting edge 3D modeling technology to provide lifesaving treatments for Bay Area children. Using state-of-the-art 3D heart imaging, the team at Children's can diagnose previously unseen complications, unlock solutions, and empower life-saving surgical approaches. To learn more: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/04/425186/how-3d-printer-heart-technology-changed-teens-life East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. Don't forget to follow East Bay Yesterday's Substack newsletter to stay updated on upcoming tours, events, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday

Celebrate the sounds of The Town with journalist Liam O'Donoghue, the host and producer of the popular local history podcast, East Bay Yesterday. Liam's show routinely covers the rich and underexplored tales of the East Bay's past, whether it's a deep dive into Emeryville's former "Rotten City" reputation, or a story about the long gone mass transit Key System that pre-dated BART and AC Transit. When he's not reporting on East Bay lore, Liam is also a music nerd and a DJ. In this episode he combines his love of history and music by taking us on an audio tour of Oakland's different musical eras through five special songs, spanning from mid-century West Coast jazz to warehouse party music.Liam's Selections: The Dave Brubeck Quartet - "Take Five" Gene Russell - "Black Orchid" Souls of Mischief - "'93 til Infinity" Keak Da Sneak - "Super Hyphy (Thizz Remix)" The Younger Lovers - "The Ballad of Two Stubborn Men"Listen to these songs and so many more on Liam's extended playlist of Oakland Jams!Subscribe to East Bay Yesterday

Think you know the Bay Area? Our past is so much more diverse, more heartbreaking, and more inspiring than anything we are taught in school. Join us as we explore some of these histories with Heather Bourbeau, Gary Kamiya, and Liam O'Donoghue, three locals who are deepening our understanding of and relationship to this place we call home. Heather Bourbeau is an award-winning author whose latest poetry collection, Monarch, explores overlooked histories of the U.S. West where she was raised—California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Gary Kamiya is an award-winning journalist of “Portals of the Past” that ran for more than 10 years in the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. Liam O'Donoghue is an award-winning journalist and hosts the “East Bay Yesterday” podcast. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond   A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It would be easy to overlook the significance of Indian Rock and Mortar Rock, two relatively modest outcroppings located in the Berkeley Hills. Unlike the towering cliffs of Yosemite, which dominate the landscape, these boulders are partially obscured by the homes and trees that surround them. But for nearly a century, some of America's most influential climbers have used these rocks as a training ground to test new techniques and technologies. The guidebook “Golden State Bouldering” calls these rocks “the heart and soul of Bay Area climbing.” In a recent Berkeleyside article titled “How Berkeley's famous boulders took rock climbing to new heights,” reporter Ally Markovich explored the history of these influential outcroppings and the loyal community of climbers who have spent decades scrambling around on them. Her article uses these Berkeley boulders as a lens for tracing the emergence of modern climbing, the rise of “dirtbag” culture, the relationship between outdoor climbing and the current proliferation of indoor gyms, and sport's growing diversity. To hear our conversation about all these topics and more, listen to the new episode. https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/climbing-was-all-i-had/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. Subscribe to my newsletter at: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday Special thanks to the sponsors of this episode: UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals Oakland and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. To learn more about UCSF Benioff Oakland's new program BLOOM: the Black Baby Equity Clinic, visit: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/07/425846/new-black-baby-equity-clinic-helps-infants-and-moms-flourish To learn more about BAMPFA's current exhibit “What Has Been and What Could Be,” visit: https://bampfa.org/program/what-has-been-and-what-could-be-bampfa-collection

After spending more than three decades working in the underground economy, Titus Lee Barnes compiled his stunning stories of “the street life” into a self-published book titled “Drug Lords of Oakland: The untold stories of California's most notorious kingpins of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.” Starting with the rise of infamous heroin kingpin Felix Mitchell, Barnes traces the trajectory of bloody turf battles and shifting allegiances throughout the emergence and implosion of the crack era. His personal connections with many of the young kingpins he profiles provides a uniquely nuanced view into a world of notorious figures that most people are only familiar with through mugshots. Although “Drug Lords” details the flashy cars and lavish parties that accompanied booming profits, Barnes doesn't shy away from the heartbreaking consequences that inevitably followed. In this interview, he shares his own experiences of being shot and incarcerated as “a cautionary tale” and offers some surprising insights into the Bay Area's ongoing crime woes. Listen now to hear Barnes' memories of growing up in Ghost Town, the improbable romance between a small-time East Oakland hustler and Colombian “cocaine godmother” Griselda Blanco, drug dealer investment strategies, and much more. See images related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/the-streets-have-changed-drastically/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: https://www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday Don't forget to follow East Bay Yesterday's Substack newsletter to stay updated on upcoming tours, events, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday

Emeryville is a tiny town – less than 2 square miles. It's nestled between Oakland and Berkeley, right at the foot of the Bay Bridge, and most people probably think of it as a place to go shopping. Two major freeways cut through Eville and from your car, while you're inevitably sitting in traffic, you can see giant signs for Ikea, Target, and Bay Street mall. If you're not from the Bay Area, you might know it as the home of Pixar. This era of Emeryville as a mecca of cartoons and commerce is relatively new. A generation ago, the landscape looked drastically different. Media often described it as an “industrial wasteland” due to the toxic pollution left behind by factories that fled in the 1970s and 80s. It was also known as a place where corruption festered during the reign of an allegedly corrupt police chief who “ruled the town with an iron fist,” according to former city manager Joe Tanner. Flash forward to 2024 and Emeryville's brand new mayor Courtney Welch, the first Black woman to hold that position, can legitimately claim that the town is “having a bit of a renaissance.” Brand new parks, apartments, and shops now occupy land that was littered with junked cars, rusty warehouses, and crumbling buildings. Taking notice of this transformation, I wrote about some of my favorite things to do in Emeryville recently for SF Gate and the article got a huge response. So, since a lot of people seem to be checking out Emeryville for the first time, I though it would be a good opportunity to look back at Emeryville's history and ask some important questions… Like: How did it become such a hell hole in the 80s? How did it transform so radically since then? Why does this extremely unique tiny little town even exist? Spoiler alert: The answers to all these questions are pretty crazy. There's a good reason why former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren famously called Emeryville “the rottenest city on the Pacific Coast.” Today's episode features interviews with Rob Arias, publisher of The Eville Eye community news site, and creator of the Emeryville Historical Society's new Park Avenue District walking tour; and also Joe Tanner, who served as Emeryville's city manager in the 1980s. https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/rotten-city-no-more/ Note: Note: To hear my previous episode about the history the “Emeryville shellmound” and battles over Ohlone sacred sites, click here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/where-are-those-ancestors-now/ This episode is sponsored by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals. For over a century, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland has upheld a long legacy of providing essential healthcare for kids and families across the East Bay. Today, UCSF is continuing the tradition of care by making a major investment which includes a new hospital building that will expand critical treatment options for those that need it most. To learn more about the future of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, click here: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2023/12/01/ucsf-benioff-childrens-hospital-expansion.html?b=1701377706^22331569 East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. You can also support East Bay Yesterday by purchasing the official t-shirt or hat from Oaklandish.

This week on Snap, the story of the first dog to travel around the world, a summer camp swimming contest to remember, plus - an earthquake that takes a man straight into the wreckage. We are so grateful for you, Snap Nation. Thank you for listening and supporting our show! Cheers to you and yours this holiday season. STORIES The Best Little Swimmer Terry Galloway is ten years old and absolutely in love with the idea of summer camp. The only problem is, her family can't afford it. But after she fails a hearing test at school, Terry learns that she is deaf -- and also eligible to attend The Lions Camp for Crippled Children, a summer camp that is free to kids with disabilities. The summer of 1960, just got way more exciting. Terry Galloway is a writer, director and performer for stage, radio, and film. For more about Terry's childhood in Texas, check out her book Mean Little Deaf Queer. Produced by Adizah Eghan, original score by Leon Morimoto The Dog That Went Around The World The story of the first dog to travel around the world (and refuse a free steak). Produced by Joe Rosenberg, sound design by Leon Morimoto Quake City Hero In 1989, an enormous earthquake struck the Bay Area. One of Oakland's major arteries, the Cypress Freeway, collapsed. And one man named Raven, a local Oaklander, left his home, and dove into the wreckage to save lives. This story contains strong language, violence, and graphic imagery. Please take care while listening. This story comes from Liam O'Donoghue, host and producer of the podcast East Bay Yesterday. Produced by Liam O'Donoghue and Eliza Smith, original score by Davey Kim Artwork by Teo Ducot Season 14 - Episode 53

As a librarian at the Oakland History Center, Dorothy Lazard helped countless patrons research their connections to the past. In her new memoir “What You Don't Know Will Make a Whole New World,” digs into her own history, examining the forces that shaped her young life in San Francisco and Oakland. After getting bounced around between relatives, schools, and towns in her early years, Dorothy found refuge in reading, a habit that would have a profound impact on how she established her place in a tumultuous world. To commemorate the release of this memoir, I recorded a conversation with Dorothy in front of a live audience at Clio's Books on June 4, 2023. In addition to discussing her book, we also cover her favorite History Center memories, what it was like to live through “urban renewal,” the importance of libraries, and much more. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/you-get-to-play-a-game-of-detective/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

For the past eight years, Olivia Allen-Price has been solving local mysteries and debunking myths on her KQED podcast Bay Curious. Each week the show tackles listeners' questions on topics ranging from architecture to salad dressing. Now a new book called “Bay Curious: Exploring the Hidden True Stories of the San Francisco Bay Area” has compiled some of the show's best investigations along with a batch of new stories. On May 18, I interviewed Olivia about the joys and challenges of investigating forgotten histories, legendary local figures, and all the quirks and oddities that make the Bay Area so unique. To make this special evening even more immersive, the event was held at the Camron-Stanford House, the last of the beautiful Victorian mansions that once surrounded Lake Merritt. If you want to hear about the origins of iconic local cocktails, the saga of the Bay Bridge troll, some very difficult trivia questions, and much more, check out the episode now: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/a-curious-conversation/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday This episode is supported by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals. I highly recommend checking out their new podcast, “Revolutionary Care: An Oakland Story,” a series about the history of treating sickle cell anemia: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/sickle-cell

Did you know that downtown Oakland is built on ancient sand dunes? Or that the East Bay hills used to be honeycombed with quarries and mines? Or why Fruitvale was such a great place to plant orchards in the 1800s? These are just a few of the stories Andrew Alden explores in his new book “Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City.” (Heyday) According to Alden, Oakland has the most rock diversity of any U.S. city, and in today's episode we discuss stories below the soil. The conversation covers everything from earthquakes and volcanoes to landslides and potholes. Check out photos related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/from-volcanoes-to-potholes/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday This episode is supported by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals. I highly recommend checking out their new podcast, “Revolutionary Care: An Oakland Story,” a series about the history of treating sickle cell anemia: www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/sickle-cell

In her new book “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock,” Jenny Odell takes a tour of the Bay Area. She begins at the Port of Oakland and travels as far as the Pacific Ocean before turning around and heading back to Mountain View Cemetery in the East Bay hills. Along the way, she also brings readers on a different kind of journey. At each location, she uses these physical spaces to illustrate different ways of thinking about time itself. Are there really 24 hours in a day? By the end of this book, you won't be so sure. I interviewed Jenny onstage at the Backroom in downtown Berkeley on April 4, 2023 in front of a live audience. The conversation covers everything from deconstructing linear conceptions of history to traffic jams on 880. Original music for this episode was produced by Mark Pantoja. Thank you to KPFA's Brandi Howell for recording this event and Kevin Hunsanger for production. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/time-is-not-money/ If you want to hear my interview with Jenny about her first book, “How to do Nothing,” check out episode 46 of East Bay Yesterday. That conversation was recorded in 2019 at the dearly departed Wolfman Books in downtown Oakland. East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Oakland's largest city park is named after Joaquin Miller, an eccentric writer who lived on the property more than a century ago. After gaining international attention as the flamboyant “Poet of the Sierra,” Miller transformed the Oakland hills by planting an estimated 75,000 trees. He called his estate “The Hights” [sic] and it became a renowned creative hub under Miller's stewardship, attracting artists and authors from as far away as Japan. Although Miller's literary fame has faded in the decades since his passing in 1913, his name is still familiar to the countless Bay Area residents who flock to Joaquin Miller Park for its stunning views and shaded trails. In 2022, Oakland made history by transferring control of Sequoia Point, a nearly five-acre parcel in Joaquin Miller Park, to Sogorea Te' Land Trust, an organization led by local indigenous women focused on returning land to Native people and revitalizing Ohlone culture. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this deal made Oakland “the first city in California to use municipal property as reparations for European settlers stealing Native American territories.” Sogorea Te' co-founder Corrina Gould envisions this location becoming a place of ceremony, education, and a model for Native land management techniques. Sogorea Te' launched the decolonization process by changing the name of the site from Sequoia Point to Rinihmu Pulte'irekne, a Chochenyo phrase meaning “Above the Red Ochre.” Now, as Sogorea Te' prepares for the next phase, which will involve replacing non-native trees with more ecologically appropriate plants, Corinna has begun to wonder about the man who planted some of those trees—but finding answers to her questions hasn't been easy. Due to Joaquin Miller's lifelong habit of mixing fact with fiction, understanding his legacy, specifically his relationship with California's Native people, is a complicated and often bewildering undertaking. Making things even more difficult is the fact that several long out-of-print biographies about Miller contradict each other and newspaper articles about him are usually peppered with myths and inaccuracies. With a section of the park named after Miller set to become a beacon of decolonization, the relevance of his legacy has gained new significance. Was he a champion of Native rights or a traitor? A brave ally to California's Native people or a participant in their genocide? These are a few of the questions confronted in this episode of East Bay Yesterday, which features interviews with Corrina Gould, Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, author and historian Alan Rosenus, and Joaquin Miller Park writer-in-residence Kristen Caven. Listen now via Apple, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Original music for this episode was produced by Mark Pantoja. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/who-was-joaquin-miller/ This episode is supported by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals. I highly recommend checking out their new podcast, “Revolutionary Care: An Oakland Story,” a series about the history of treating sickle cell anemia: www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/sickle-cell

Journalists Ali Winston and Darwin Bondgraham have been investigating the Oakland Police Department for more than a decade. Their coverage of violent misconduct, corruption, and sexual abuse has led to multiple resignations and terminations within the department, but even more shocking is the relative lack of consequences for many of the officers responsible for this illegal behavior. Winston and Bondgraham's new book “The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover Up in Oakland” proves that this pattern of impunity has characterized the department since its very inception.  “The Riders Come Out at Night” compiles more than a century of OPD scandals in order to understand why the department has been unable to reform itself according to the demands of a court-ordered consent decree, despite two decades of federal oversight. History repeats itself in scandal after scandal as a toxic stew of racism, machismo, resentment, carelessness and lethal violence is brushed aside or even rewarded, while taxpayers cover the costs and victims' families are left devastated. For Oaklanders desperately yearning for safer streets, this book paints a sad and frustrating picture about the relationship between law enforcement and public safety. On January 21, I recorded an interview with Winston and Bondgraham in front of a live audience at Clio's Books in Oakland. We discussed the history of the Oakland Police Department, the current scandal that has resulted in Chief LeRonne Armstrong being placed on administrative leave, and much more. For more info, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/is-reform-possible/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive:www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Jive and Brother G review the East Bay Yesterday podcast, by Liam O'Donoghue.More at jivestreams.com

#036 - Today we speak with Liam O'Donoghue, the host and producer of the East Bay Yesterday Podcast.  Liam explores the stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  It was named the “The Best Podcast about the East Bay” in 2017 by the East Bay Express.  Liam says he started the podcast to share the great untold stories he heard from residents.“every time I talked to people who lived around Oakland or lived around the East Bay for a long time, I realized they had really good stories - stories that I hadn't known about before. They told me, and I felt like stories that most people probably weren't aware of and I felt like someone needed to collect those stories and share them and celebrate them”.Liam is a trained journalist and his work has appeared in outlets such as KQED, Oaklandside, Berkeleyside, Mother Jones, Salon, East Bay Express, 99% Invisible, The Kitchen Sisters, and the syndicated NPR program Snap Judgement.  He intentionally decided to go with audio vs print medium to share these stories because the show is really about the guests and he wanted their voices to be the main thing driving the narrative.The podcast got picked up by KPFA and Liam now writes a monthly column for SF Gate.  Liam has given many presentations on local history at libraries, schools and bookstores and throughout the Bay Area, but he is most proud of the inclusion of his content by schools.“one of the things I'm most proud of is that it's actually being used in a lot of curriculums now by local teachers everywhere from the middle school level, up through the grad school level.  People who are looking for ways to get their students excited about local history are using the podcast and the radio show to get the kids excited about that. So that's been really rewarding to see that happen”.Be sure to listen to until the end to hear how the podcast has led to sold out boat tours on the bay.

Elsie Robinson was a pioneer of women in media, an early advocate for equal rights, and at one point the highest-paid woman writer in the nation. Before launching her journalism career, Elsie's life was an astonishing rollercoaster that included everything from a marriage to a wealthy Victorian gentleman to a job working deep within the bowels of the Sierra foothills mining for gold. So how is it possible that her name has been largely forgotten? Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert confront this mystery in a fascinating new biography called “Listen, World! How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson became America's Most-Read Woman.” In this episode, recorded at the Oakland Library in front of a live audience, we discuss Robinson's unlikely rise from the Oakland Tribune to the upper echelons of national media, her legacy, and the challenges of uncovering this nearly forgotten story. To see photos and links related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/what-happened-to-americas-most-read-woman/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

After years of working a corporate job in downtown Oakland, Nenna Joiner woke up one morning with a dream: They wanted to be in the sex industry. After their job applications were rejected by every adult pleasure shop in the area, Nenna decided to launch their own business. They started by selling sex toys and porn DVDs out of a box at bars (and sometimes even at BART stations), but from these humble beginnings grew a mini-empire. More than a decade later, Nenna now owns two Feelmore Adult Galleries, plans to open a sex-themed bar called Feelmore Social later this year, and is running for a seat on Oakland's City Council. Nenna's first position in politics was as a member of the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board, which led them to an interest in the East Bay's sex history. Years of purchasing adult artifacts from Oakland collectors and now-defunct sex shops deepened their knowledge of former bordellos, theaters, underground sex clubs, and nightlife institutions. For obvious reasons, “sex history” isn't an easy topic to document, but in this episode Nenna discusses everything from how to find brothels on old maps to their personal journey in the sex industry. To hear about why Ronald Reagan is responsible for the lack of strip clubs in Oakland, the rise and fall of burlesque theaters, the unintended consequences of the Red Light Abatement Act, and much more, listen to the full episode now. To see photos related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/its-okay-to-talk-about-sex-toys/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Miriam Klein Stahl came to the Bay Area in the late ‘80s seeking a community of queer punks that she'd read about in underground zines like Homocore. She wasn't a musician, but she loved working with her hands and quickly realized that she could contribute to this thriving scene by drawing flyers and creating illustrations. Miriam's rebellious passion infused her heavily politicized images with confrontational power and urgency. More than three decades later, she's still making radical art, but now her work is adorning museums as well as punk clubs. An entire wall of the Oakland Museum of California's Hella Feminist exhibition is covered with 200 paper-cut portraits of “women/nonbinary humans whose lives and work intersect and impact the East Bay.” These figures range from Gilded Age bohemian poets and pre-WWII civil rights leaders to witches, welders, and high school activists. The co-creator of this Hella Feminist portrait project is local author Kate Schatz, who Miram also collaborated with for a series of best-selling books such as “Rad American History A-Z” and “Rad Women Worldwide.” In this episode, Miriam discusses her philosophy of public art, her career as an art teacher at Berkeley High, and the histories of the women and nonbinary people featured in her illustrations. See images related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/nurses-novelists-politicians-and-punks/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Join Samwise Raridon Community Herbalist and Violet, Artist and Herbalist, for a powerful and honest conversation about how being in relationship with the plants and our minds can help us change our lives for the better. Together they talk about using meditation and california poppy to work with the energies of addiction and other challenges of being very human. For folks who are inspired to begin a meditation or contemplation practice as a way to tend for our spirits, Violet recommends a meditation app inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's work called The Plum Village App. You can also check out some of Pema Chodron's free meditation instruction videos on youtube. You can find out more about Violet's work and classes at her website https://witchcraftapothecary.com/ and see some of her amazing tattoo work on Instagram at @witchcraft_apothecary . Also check out this awesome and bad ass article about her on East Bay Yesterday. Art Credit for Episode Art: California Poppy Tattoo by Violet Big thanks to Seed Minkin for their guest appearance at the end of the episode sharing a bit about why they chose California Poppy to appear on the shirts and stickers for the Queer Trans Youth and Allies summer camp they direct. If you want to find out more about the film that uplifts queer and trans youth joy and support the filmmakers in raising some finishing funds for the film, you can buy these rad shirts and learn more at https://www.bonfire.com/store/metamorph-mentorship/ and their website at https://metamorphmentorship.com/ . --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Herb at the End of the World is created by Samwise Raridon, community herbalist, teacher and organizer of germanic, celtic and lebanese lineages living as a guest in unceded Shawnee, Osage, Ofo and Mesopelea (otherwise known as Adena and Hopewell) land, colonially known as Athens, Ohio. This podcast will always be offered freely. If you're inspired by this work and want to support others in accessing healing and learning, please consider joining us as a patron on Patreon. If you are inspired by this work please leave us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts so more people can find out about these resources! Have you seen this awesome video of our clinical work? Big big thanks to Em Harger for producing this magical short film. IG: @selfhealherbs FB: https://www.facebook.com/self.heal.herbal.clinic Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/samwiseraridoncommunityherbalist?fan_landing=true Sam's Website: https://www.selfhealherbs.com/

Julia Morgan wasn't just one of the most renowned architects of the 20th century, she was a true pioneer of her profession. She was the first woman to be admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which was the most important architecture school of its era, as well as the first woman in California to earn an architecture license and eventually the first woman to win the American Institute of Architects' highest honor. Then there's her buildings. She's best known for Hearst Castle, but over her long career she designed hundreds of impressive structures – the Berkeley City Club, Oakland's YWCA, the Asilomar Conference Center, El Campanil at Mills College, and the list goes on and on. As a woman, Morgan didn't always get the recognition she deserved, but in more recent decades, she's been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, and museum exhibits. However, a new book takes a different approach by imagining Julia's early years, as a young woman growing up in Victorian era East Bay. In “Drawing Outside the Lines,” Susan J. Austin tells the story of the architect's formative time at Oakland High School and UC Berkeley during the 1880s and 90s. The book is a work of historical fiction, but Austin spent years on research in order to make the story as realistic as possible. In this episode, Susan J. Austin discusses her favorite Julia Morgan buildings, why she thinks Julia Morgan's story will be relevant for young readers, and some of the famous figures, such as Gertrude Stein and Frank Norris, who make cameo appearances in “Drawing Outside the Lines.” To see photos related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/what-made-julia-morgan-different/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

[This is a re-broadcast of an episode originally aired in 2019.] 50 years ago, a group of students, activists and community members transformed a muddy, junk-filled parking lot into a park. When the University of California, under heavy pressure from Gov. Ronald Reagan, tore up the grass and surrounded the land with a heavily-guarded fence, this response triggered a surreal and tragic set of events. The maelstrom of violence that engulfed Berkeley in May 1969 would be almost impossible to believe if the cameras hadn't been rolling. Dozens were shot, hundreds were arrested, and thousands were teargassed – protesters and innocent bystanders alike. During the military occupation of Berkeley by National Guardsmen, a helicopter launched a chemical attack on the University campus, children were surrounded by bayonet-wielding soldiers, and journalists were detained under the supervision of brutally sadistic guards. Amidst this upheaval, Gov. Reagan told a group of reporters, “If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with, no more appeasement.” This episode explores the conflict with Tom Dalzell, the author of “The Battle for People's Park” (Heyday Books), and through archival audio captured by KPFA-FM reporters in 1969 and 1970. If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday To see photos related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/if-it-takes-a-bloodbath-lets-get-it-over-with/ To purchase “The Battle for People's Park, Berkeley 1969”: https://aerbook.com/maker/productcard-4196911-4706.html Episode art: Photo: Ted Streshinsky; courtesy of the Streshinsky Family. Image used by kind permission of Heyday Books.

Over the past few years, there's been a huge upsurge in efforts to remove books about gender and race from libraries and schools, and in some cases even ban them from being sold to minors altogether. One of the books frequently targeted by these campaigns is “The 57 Bus,” which examines a 2013 incident involving a nonbinary teenager who was lit on fire by an Oakland High student while taking AC Transit home from school. The book was a bestseller and won critical acclaim for its nuanced portrayal of what it's like to be a young person who doesn't fit into “traditional” gender roles, as well as its critical look into the failings of America's criminal justice system, but now it's being illegitimately denounced as “pornographic” by parents parroting the talking points of conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty. In reality, there's nothing sexual in the book—they're simply scared of it. Besides book banning, there are hundreds of anti-LGBTQ laws being proposed across the country right now, not to mention rising cases of violent intimidation like the Proud Boys' disruption of a “Drag Queen Story Hour” event right here in the East Bay earlier this month. Amidst this reactionary backlash, I interviewed the author of “The 57 Bus,” Dashka Slater, a longtime Oakland resident and former East Bay Express staff writer. In this episode, we discuss the battle over controversial books, the political power of historical narratives, and, of course, the disturbing crime at the center of “The 57 Bus.” Listen now on Apple, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. To see images related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/theyre-scared-of-this-book/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Instead of waiting around for a solution to California's housing crisis, about a decade ago Violet Thorns decided to move into one of the hundreds of vacant homes scattered throughout Oakland. During the Occupy era, she was part of a loose network of dozens of squats, but since then nearly all of those were evicted as local property values soared. After her community crumbled, Violet found herself living in a squalid, burned out building with no money and few resources. As a trans woman she was desperate to remain in the Bay Area, despite not being able to afford this region's astronomical rents. Then one day, she noticed a vacant lot on a residential street that was so overgrown with fennel that she knew the owners hadn't been there for years. Today's episode is about how Violet built a tiny home and a thriving garden on that abandoned land and gotten away with living there for nearly eight years without paying rent. Listen now to hear about the rise and fall of an anarchic squatting scene, how to deal with angry landlords, the Gold Rush-era laws squatters use to stave off evictions, guerilla gardening tips, and much more. See photos related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/how-to-not-pay-rent/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Growing up in West Oakland during the 1940s, Evangeline Canonizado Buell remembers the neighborhood as “a melting pot of… adobo, linguisa, tamales, blues, and jazz.” From an early age, this child of Filipino immigrants learned how to connect with her Black, Portuguese, Mexican, Greek and Japanese neighbors through food and music, skills that she later built into careers as a guitar teacher, historian, and program coordinator for the Berkeley Co-Op. Her memoir, “Twenty-Five Chickens and a Pig for a Bride,” intertwines her personal journey of overcoming abuse and discrimination with the growth of California's Filipino community, mixing tantalizing stories of backyard pig roasts with infuriating memories of racist harassment. In this episode, Evangeline shares some of the wisdom, humor, and music that she's accumulated throughout her nine decades living in the East Bay. Listen now to hear a conversation that covers everything from the agricultural origins of Bay Farm Island to the long legacy of the Spanish-American War. See photos related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/they-wouldnt-sell-us-rice/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Why has Oakland produced so many all-star athletes? This is the question that propels Paul Brekke-Miesner's book “Home Field Advantage: The City That Changed the Face of Sports” through decades of local history, from the playgrounds to stadiums. His exploration helps explain not only the origins of this highly concentrated pool of athletic ability, but also why so many local stars have used their visibility to call attention to social struggles, long before Colin Kaepernick famously took a knee to protest police violence. An Oakland native who grew up playing ball in the Eastmont neighborhood and began covering sports at Castlemont High more than half a century ago, Brekke-Miesner brings deep knowledge about such iconic athletes as Bill Russell, Ricky Henderson, Frank Robinson, Curt Flood and many others to our conversation in this episode. Along the way, we also discuss the impact of Prop. 13 on youth sports, some very unlikely superstars, and why The Town might be better off without the billionaire owners who keep breaking our hearts. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/from-playgrounds-to-the-pros/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Although most “blaxploitation” flicks from the 1970s were action thrillers, “The Mack” feels more like a documentary. The film was shot on location in pool halls, barber shops and speakeasies throughout Oakland and features real people, not professional actors, as extras. But the driving force of the film's authenticity came from the Ward Brothers, a family of pimps who dominated the Bay Area's underground sex trade during this era. The movie's protagonist, Goldie, was modeled on Frank Ward, the crew's charismatic leader, and the rest of the brothers lent their clothes, cars, and expertise to the production, which was filmed on a shoestring budget. Immortalized by dozens of rap hits that sampled the film's streetwise dialogue and funky soundtrack, “The Mack” went on to become a cult classic that's still relevant five decades after its release. However, Frank Ward never got to enjoy the film he inspired – along with Blanche Bernard, he was murdered in October 1972, sparking a persistent rumor that the Black Panthers were involved in his assassination. Now, on the 50th anniversary of this unsolved crime, Oakland native Chloe Sylvers has published “The Fabulous Ward Brothers,” the first book to explore the real origins of this family's brief empire, investigate the double homicide that shattered them, and separate facts from sensationalized myths. Listen now to hear how she tracked down the story of “the original macks.” To see more photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/they-were-real-macks/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In many ways, Berkeley is a city defined by dichotomies. The hills and the flatlands, academia and industry, counterculture and The Establishment. Despite the city's progressive reputation, Berkeley has never been a monolithic place. The tensions between conflicting political and cultural forces are what have made it so dynamic and unique. Although Berkeley's reputation will forever be tied to the student uprisings of the 1960s, the century or so leading up to those conflicts is just as fascinating. Charles Wollenberg wrote the definitive book on Berkeley's early years, “Berkeley: A City in History” (UC Press) and on today's episode we cover major milestones between the Gold Rush and the Great Depression. Listen now to hear about Berkeley's first businesses, a socialist mayor, some very ironic squatters, Bernard Maybeck, single family zoning laws, Phoebe Hearst, a boozy urban legend, and even an extremely symbolic sword fight. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/a-new-pacific-frontier/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In the early 20th century, the largest employer of Black men in the United States was the Pullman Car Company, which operated luxurious trains that carried millions of passengers around the booming nation in an era before airplanes and interstate highways. Ever since the company's founding during the Civil War, Pullman exclusively hired Black men as porters to keep the train cars clean and serve the white passengers. Although the job was prestigious, by the 1920s porters were fed up with the low pay, long hours, and abusive conditions. Their struggle to unionize became one of the most significant civil rights conflicts of the pre-WWII era and laid the groundwork for the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. in later years. Produced by Liam O'Donoghue for his podcast East Bay Yesterday, this story explores how Oakland's C.L. Dellums helped the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters triumph over one of the nation's most powerful corporations, and also his massive impact on challenging widespread racial discrimination throughout California. Dellums helped make jobs in wartime industries available to Black workers, setting the stage for the “second great migration” on the West Coast; he organized early protests against police brutality; and he helped end widespread racial segregation among powerful labor unions. His goal was nothing short of “total freedom and equality.” With special guest Susan D. Anderson, the History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum, and the author of a forthcoming book on California's Black history. This episode also features a segment from the **Black Liberation Walking Tour **which includes the voices of C.L. Dellums and his daughter Marva. Many thanks to Liam O'Donoghue for sharing his work on The Kitchen Sisters Present.

Some cities were founded by warriors, prophets, or idealistic visionaries. The man who established Oakland was an unscrupulous lawyer looking to get rich quick. This 1877 newspaper quote captures the sentiment shared by many residents about The Town's first mayor: “If the early settlers had taken Horace W. Carpentier to a convenient tree and hung him, as they frequently threatened to do, the act would have been beneficial to immediate posterity.” Featuring an interview with local historian and author Dennis Evanosky, this episode travels back to Oakland's origins to explore what made our founding father such a widely detested villain. See photos related to this episode here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/he-stole-the-town/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In 1968, an exhibition titled “New Perspectives in Black Art” opened in the Kaiser Center Gallery of the Oakland Museum. The show was curated by Evangeline “E.J.” Montgomery, a woman who was at the nucleus of the West Coast's vibrant Black Arts movement during that radical era. According to Montgomery, the “New Perspectives” collection was “the first time that a Black Arts association has organized and set up their own art exhibit in a museum of this size.” Now, more than five decades later, Oakland-raised radio producer Babette Thomas is revisiting the life and legacy of E.J. Montgomery in a new season of SFMOMA's Raw Material podcast called “Visions of Black Futurity.” Across seven episodes, Thomas will explore the local roots of the Black Arts movement to understand how this often overlooked past could inform the kind of future they want to see, a future of Black creative expression released from the limitations of traditional art institutions. Explaining why they chose to focus this series on E.J. Montgomery, Thomas explained, “Black Art was her language, and she used it to advocate for the role and work of Black artists and ensure that Black art was accessible to the communities to whom it mattered to the most.” Listen to the podcast now to hear episode one of Raw Material's “Visions of Black Futurity” and an interview with Babette Thomas covering what they discovered about the history of California Black Arts while making this series. See photos related to this episode here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/black-art-was-her-language/ More about Raw Material: https://www.sfmoma.org/raw-material-a-podcast-from-sfmoma/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Liam O'Donoghue is the host and producer of the East Bay Yesterday podcast and co-creator of the Long Lost Oakland map. His journalism has appeared in outlets such as KQED Arts, Berkeleyside, Open Space, KALW-FM, Mother Jones, Salon, East Bay Express, and the syndicated NPR program Snap Judgement. In 2018, he was honored by the East Bay Express as “the best journalist-turned-historian” and presented with a “Partners in Preservation Award” from Oakland Heritage Alliance. O'Donoghue has given many presentations on local history at libraries, schools and bookstores and throughout the Bay Area, as well as at institutions such as The California Historical Society, The Hearst Museum, Oakland Rotary Club, and Nerd Nite East Bay. O'Donoghue's quotes on Oakland-related issues have appeared in media outlets including New York Times and Washington Post.

The Bay Area's status as a rock & roll mecca may have peaked during the psychedelic sixties, but the party didn't stop after the hippies took the flowers out of their hair. Following the height of the Haight-Ashbury scene, a wild diversity of styles and iconic performers continued to emerge from this region's clubs, cafes, and even churches. These locations are compiled in “Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area,” a new book that traces the rise of groups ranging from The Pointer Sisters to Primus by literally following in these superstars' footsteps. This episode features an interview with authors Mike Katz and Crispin Kott about the geographic history of Bay Area rock & roll and also explores the profound ways this terrain has shifted over the past few decades. If you want to hear about how they tracked down all the East Bay landmarks mentioned in Green Day lyrics, why Metallica ditched L.A. for the Bay, and much more, listen to the full episode. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/more-than-just-the-1960s/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In the early 20th century, the largest employer of Black men in the United States was the Pullman Car Company, which operated luxurious trains that carried millions of passengers around the booming nation in an era before airplanes and interstate highways. Ever since the company's founding during the Civil War, Pullman exclusively hired Black men as porters to keep the train cars clean and serve the white passengers. Although the job was prestigious, by the 1920s porters were fed up with the low pay, long hours, and abusive conditions. Their struggle to unionize became one of the most significant civil rights conflicts of the pre-WWII era and laid the groundwork for the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. in later years. This episode explores how Oakland's C.L. Dellums helped the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters triumph over one of the nation's most powerful corporations, and also his massive impact on challenging widespread racial discrimination throughout California. Dellums helped open jobs in wartime industries up for Black workers, setting the stage for the “second great migration” on the West Coast; he organized early protests against police brutality; and he helped end widespread racial segregation among powerful labor unions. His goal was nothing short of “total freedom and equality.” Today's guest is Susan D. Anderson, the History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum, and the author of a forthcoming book on California's Black history. This episode also features a segment from the Black Liberation Walking Tour which includes the voices of C.L. Dellums and his daughter Marva. See photos and more information about this episode here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/the-porters-were-fed-up/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Samantha Durbin's acid was just kicking in as she entered an Oakland donut shop to score a handmade map to a secret warehouse party. On that chilly winter night in 1996, she ended up dancing to pulsing beats and kaleidoscopic lights until the sun came up. Thinking back to her first rave, Samantha remembers it feeling “like a neon space carnival.” Soon the highschool sophomore was chasing after bigger parties and higher highs every weekend. In her new memoir, “Raver Girl: Coming of Age in the 90s” Durbin bring readers along to sweat-soaked raves at roller rinks and farm fields, into a world of comically huge pants and ridiculously tripped-out teenagers, where there's always room for one more to join the cuddle puddle in the corner of the chill room. Listen to the podcast to hear us discuss candyflipping, raver fashion, and, of course, Homebase – the legendary Oakland venue that hosted some of the most massive underground parties the Bay Area has ever seen. To see photos related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/like-a-neon-space-carnival/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Thanks to its natural deepwater port, San Francisco quickly emerged as the West Coast's leading metropolis during California's Gold Rush era. In the decades since, many of Oakland's development patterns have been influenced by its competitive relationship with the sparkling and sophisticated city across the Bay. As a result, the elitist ambitions of Oakland's political and business leaders often overlooked, or actively harmed, many of The Town's existing residents. For wealthy developers dreaming of car-friendly, upscale shopping malls and homogenous office towers, Black neighborhoods, immigrant enclaves, and working class districts were treated as obstacles to be bulldozed. This paradigm pre-dates common usage of the term “gentrification” by generations. Cycles of displacement are one of the main themes explored in “Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption” (UC Press) by Mitchell Schwarzer. As opposed to focusing primarily on individual power brokers, Schwarzer, a professor of architectural and urban history at California College of the Arts, zooms out to identify the broad economic and technological trends that have shaped the place where he's lived for most of the past four decades. The book weaves together topics ranging from the rise of car culture to the consolidation of commerce in order to explain more than a century of policies and priorities that shaped our current landscape. In this episode of East Bay Yesterday, we discuss Oakland's tumultuous evolution, and also some of the best and worst development proposals that failed to become reality. To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/theres-no-reason-to-be-san-francisco/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

William Gee Wong almost didn't exist. A few years before Wong was born, his father was shot four times over a dispute involving Oakland Chinatown's underground lottery. Thanks to the quick work of doctors at Highland Hospital, Wong's father survived, and after retiring from the gambling business, he opened the Great China restaurant on a busy commercial stretch of Webster Street. William Gee Wong was born just around the corner, at the family's house on Harrison Street, the youngest of seven children. Even after his family moved to the “China Hill” area east of Lake Merritt, one of the few neighborhoods open to Asian-Americans during the 1940s, William spent most of his time either working for the family business or at Lincoln School. This is why he says “Chinatown was my whole universe” for about the first 20 years of his life. As the decades passed, Bill learned journalism writing for The Daily Cal, before breaking racial barriers at the San Francisco Chronicle and Wall Street Journal. Eventually, he returned to his hometown to write for The Oakland Tribune about culture and politics from an Asian-American perspective, something practically unheard of at mainstream media outlets in the 1980s. Since retiring he's published two books, “Yellow Journalist” and “Oakland's Chinatown,” and he's currently working on a memoir about his father, who immigrated from China in 1912. In today's episode, William Gee Wong discusses the history of Chinese immigration to California, the rise of Oakland's Chinatown, his memories of working in a “hybrid” restaurant, the systemic racism of urban renewal projects that gutted his neighborhood, and much more. To see photos related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

A few years ago, Aussie Holcomb was going through a divorce, and her relationship with her dad wasn't going well, either. Feeling lost and lonely, she began reading her grandparents' old love letters, which had recently been uncovered after sitting at the back of a dusty closet for more than 60 years. As Aussie made her way through bundles of envelopes, the emotions captured in those letters spilled off the pages and infused her life with the contagious joy of young love. Wanting to retrace her grandparents' path, the letters sparked an adventure that led Aussie to a remote corner of California, far from home. In this unlikely place, she found reconciliation with her dad, and much more. Listen to the full episode now to hear the love story of Ray Hertz and Ginny Stewart, as told by their granddaughter, Aussie Holcomb, and their son, Mark Hertz. Ray and Ginny's letters, which were written between 1949 and 1951, are read by their dear friend Carl Weinberg and their daughter Tracy Hertz. You can see photos related to this story at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/dear-brown-eyes/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

The quickest way to start a dance party in the Bay Area is to play a Mac Dre song. Countless times, I've seen mellow crowds instantly transform as soon as the first few beats from hyphy hits like “Feelin' Myself” and “Thizzle Dance” come blasting out of the speakers. Everyone from little kids to grandmas know how to bust the lyrics, the dance moves, and, of course, the thizz face. In the 17 years since his death, the Oakland-born, Vallejo-raised rapper's popularity only continues to grow. Since his 2004 murder in Kansas City, rumors, accusations, and retaliatory violence have swirled around the unsolved case. Although nobody has ever been charged for the crime, investigative journalist Donald Morrison recently published an investigation that draws on 1,200 documents and dozens of interviews in order to fill in some of the missing puzzle pieces. Nothing will bring back the “Legend of the Bay”, but this article provides some stunning new clues that may help shed light on the devastating question: “Who killed Mac Dre?” To see photos related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/who-ordered-the-hit/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Oakland’s Hoover-Foster neighborhood encapsulates more than a century of Black Liberation struggles. It was a destination for migrants fleeing the Jim Crow South to find work in the East Bay’s booming shipyards or as Pullman Porters. The newcomers brought their music, cuisine, and creativity with them, changing California forever. Civil rights leaders, pioneering writers, revolutionary activists, and athletes who smashed through racist color barriers all lived and worked here. The elders who came of age during the post-World War II years recall growing up in a flourishing and close-knit community. However, as this ethnically diverse neighborhood became predominantly African American, the forces of institutional racism literally came crashing down upon it. The construction of freeways destroyed dozens of blocks of homes and businesses, displaced thousands, and encircled the area with a dangerous border of pollution and noise. Then a Drug War characterized by mass incarceration and police abuse flooded these streets with misery and death, leaving a legacy that still lingers heavily. In more recent years, predatory banks, institutional investors, and real estate speculators exploited this devastation for quick profits, pushing many long-time residents out of Oakland altogether. But instead of giving up hope, many who still remain are working to restore this neighborhood’s reputation as a beacon of Black self-determination and achievement. One of the organizations leading this push is the Friends of Hoover-Durant Public Library, who have been hosting “pop-up streetcorner libraries” to build momentum towards re-establishing a permanent library in this community, which hasn’t had its own branch in four decades. As an outgrowth of this effort, third generation Oaklander David Peters brought together a group of neighbors, artists, educators, programmers, and other volunteers to highlight this neighborhood’s history through a self-guided Black Liberation Walking Tour. For the past several months, I’ve been collecting oral histories of current and former Hoover-Foster residents and today’s episode of East Bay Yesterday is a preview of the Black Liberation Walking Tour, based on what I’ve gathered. More details will be coming soon, but the plan is to launch the first phase of this tour in June, with additional phases and attractions to follow in the coming months, including a new mural created by the Bay Area Mural Program. Many people are involved with making the Black Liberation Walking Tour happen – my interviews are only one part of a much bigger project – but if you want a taste of what to expect, listen now to the the first episode of the “Hoover-Foster Stories” mini-series, co-hosted by David Peters and featuring interviews with: Crystal and Lynette Martin of Flint’s Barbecue, Alternier Baker Cook of the Friends of Hoover-Durant Public Library, and community organizer Annette Miller. To get involved, visit: https://black-liberation-tour.vercel.app/ To see photos and more details related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/hoover-foster-stories-vol-1/

Before Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started the Black Panther Party, they spent years learning from the leaders of the Afro-American Association. During the early 1960s, when the struggle for racial justice was evolving from a civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the rise of Black Power, the Afro-American Association brought leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali to the East Bay for public conversations about philosophy, religion, economics, politics, and more. Members and close associates of this organization, such as Ron Dellums, Judge Thelton Henderson, and Cedric Robinson, went on to become some of the most influential cultural and political Black leaders of their generation. Kamala Harris’ parents even met at one of these gatherings. This episode explores the mostly forgotten* legacy of the Afro-American Association and its leader, Donald Warden (who later changed his name to Khalid Abdullah Tariq al Mansour), through interviews with four former members – Anne Williams, Margot Dashiell, and brothers Loye and Lee Cherry – as well as Oakland History Center head librarian Dorothy Lazard. Listen now to hear about this group’s origins on the campus of UC Berkeley, their “Mind of the Ghetto” conferences in West Oakland, and much more. To see photos related to this episode, check out: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/were-no-longer-afraid-to-be-black/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

It’s nearly impossible to summarize the magnitude of the New Deal’s impact in the Bay Area. From the creation of Lake Anza, Woodminster Amphitheater, and Treasure Island to countless murals, schools, and other public amenities, federal funding dramatically transformed the local landscape and culture during the 1930s. President Roosevelt’s decision to invest in arts and infrastructure as a response to the Great Depression is one of the greatest success stories in the history of American politics. Could something on this scale ever happen again? As a new Democratic administration takes power amidst a crisis of unemployment and vast inequality, today’s episode explores the lessons of the New Deal with historians Gray Brechin and Harvey Smith of The Living New Deal, an organization dedicated to uncovering and preserving public works from this era. From airports to sewers, the legacy of the New Deal is still utilized by millions, even if the history connecting these crucial components of modern society has mostly been forgotten. Listen now to hear about how a trip to Berkeley’s rose garden inspired a lifelong obsession with “uncovering a lost civilization” – and why the New Deal is still such a controversial topic. See images for this story here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/were-uncovering-a-lost-civilization/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Two decades ago, Brontez Purnell fled his Christian family in Alabama, landed in a warehouse full of punks in East Oakland, and quickly got to work hooking up with as many guys as he could get his hands on. Janelle Hessig, creator of influential zines like Tales of Blarg and Desperate Times, urged Brontez to chronicle his eclectic trysts, and in 2014 they published an illustrated compilation of this self-described “anti-erotica.” The combination of Brontez’s gleeful debauchery and Janelle’s laughably lurid drawings made “The Cruising Diaries” an instant Bay Area underground classic, with the first print run (that Janelle financed with settlement money from getting hit by a car) selling out rapidly. Since then, Brontez has written three acclaimed novels and been celebrated by the New York Times as an essential “Black male writer for our time.” In this episode, Brontez and Janelle recall the roots of the friendship that helped launch this distinguished career. First, we discuss the thriving 1990s/2000s warehouse culture that incubated a generation of broke Bay Area artists and musicians. Then, Brontez takes us on a tour of some notable East Bay cruising spots of yesteryear. Listen now to hear stories of nefarious potlucks, horny wizards, landfill parties, go-go boys, and more. Images for this story can be found at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/bart-bathhouses-beyond/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

When Jose Rivera started researching the Bay Area’s Chicano history, he was frustrated by how difficult it was to find information. To remedy this problem, Jose created Oakland Latinos Unidos as a platform for sharing stories that are often left out of mainstream narratives. We recently met up at a picnic table in San Antonio Park where Jose laid out some of the archives he’s amassed over the past two decades – newspaper clippings, grainy black-and-white photographs, and rare, out-of-print books. Under a redwood tree, we discussed everything from the De Anza expedition to the gang wars that Jose lived through while growing up in Jingletown. See images for this episode here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/we-were-here-before-california-was-a-state/ Follow Oakland Latinos Unidos: https://www.facebook.com/Oakland-Latinos-United-353349838807/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In 1946, a few hundred department store employees, mostly women, walked off the job and started a picket line in downtown Oakland. Within a few weeks, more than 100,000 workers joined them, filling the streets with protesters who danced under holiday wreaths hanging from downtown lampposts. “This seemingly small action turned into the biggest challenge to corporate domination of American workers in the postwar years,” according to Erik Loomis, author of “A History of America in Ten Strikes.” Despite an unprecedented outpouring of support, the story of those department store workers turned out to be a cautionary tale, rather than a triumph, for workers seeking to unionize. In the backlash that followed the strike, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, legislation that continues to hobble labor organizing to this day. Featuring interviews with Erik Loomis, labor historian Gifford Hartman, and archival recordings of workers who participated in the 1946 uprising, this episode explores why Oakland was the site of “America’s last great general strike” – and the connections between this 74-year-old conflict and the struggles of today’s “gig economy” workers. To see images related to this story, check out https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/it-was-like-a-carnival/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Amidst this year’s bombardment of campaign ads and nonstop election news, it’s easy to forget that the ballot box is only one of many ways that people participate in politics and drive systemic change. Although often ignored by history books, which tend to focus on politicians, “bottom up” movements led by students, workers, and other “regular people” have been a major force in shaping the Bay Area. From criminal justice reform to LGBTQ equality, the changes happening now at the policy level emerged from years of organizing, and are built upon mountains of frustrating setbacks. At a time when the federal government is characterized by gridlock and dysfunction, looking back at the strength of local activism through the decades is a healthy reminder that much can be accomplished between elections, far from the halls of power. If you’ve been staring into the soul-sucking abyss of cable news or doomscrolling through the implosion of American democracy, delving into the stories of anti-eviction battles, Ohlone resistance, strikes, and resilient celebration featured in “A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area” (UC Press) will provide a welcome glimmer of hope. Not naive optimism, but the kind of tempered determination that comes when you remember how bad things have been before – and how people successfully fought to keep them from getting worse. This might be hard to believe right now, but some things even got better. (Case in point: Many of the Bay Area’s most beautiful parks are located on the sites of former military installations.) Although formatted similarly to popular travel books, “A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area” does not include the region’s most obvious tourist destinations. Instead, it explores the landscape from a historical perspective, highlighting significant places associated with social conflict, ecological restoration, and radical activism. For those wishing to combine their education with a bit of exercise, it even includes a series of thematic tours organized by themes such as “Youth in Revolt” and “The Intertribal Bay.” This episode features interviews with co-author Rachel Brahinsky, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco, and Diana Negrín da Silva, who contributed many of the book’s East Bay entries and also teaches in the geography department of UC Berkeley. Listen now to hear us discuss Oakland’s long history of dancing during protests, the origins of Contra Costa County’s “fossil fuel corridor” and much more: Apple / SoundCloud / Spotify. East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday See images for this story here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/were-not-selling-a-neighborhood/

On the morning of October 20, 1991, towering clouds of black smoke blocked out the sun as “diablo winds” whipped flames hot enough to melt gold throughout the hills above Oakland and Berkeley. By the end of that day, 25 people were dead and more than 3000 homes lay in ashes and charred rubble, little remaining but chimneys and the blackened skeletons of trees. Nearly 30 years later, as California suffers its most widespread wildfire season in living memory, this episode looks back at the inferno that gave us a terrifying glimpse of the future we’re now living through. Retired East Bay Regional Parks Department firefighter Bill Nichols provides a first-hand account of battling the blaze and the lessons he learned that day that shaped the rest of his career. Risa Nye, author of the memoir “There Was a Fire Here,” discusses how she coped with watching her entire neighborhood burn down, including her home and all her family’s possessions, and explains how she navigated the lengthy recovery process. See images for this story here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/a-home-burned-every-11-seconds/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

A few years ago developers destroyed downtown Oakland’s largest rookery of black-crowned night herons. Workers removed dozens of nests before chopping down the curbside ficus trees where the birds had lived for years. The plan was to relocate them to a grove near Lake Merritt, but the night herons never agreed to this arrangement – and they weren’t tricked by the decoys meant to entice them away from their preferred territory. They simply found other trees in the downtown vicinity where they remain to this day. When Oakland declared the black-crowned night heron the city’s official bird in 2019, the resolution described the species as “a resilient bird with remarkable adaptability in urban areas while remaining wild and retaining their natural behaviors.” This defiant attitude, along with the bird’s unconventional beauty and deep local roots, is why I’ve chosen to feature the night heron on East Bay Yesterday’s first t-shirt, a collaboration with Oaklandish illustrated by T.L Simons. This project is a celebration of those who refused to be displaced. But, of course, the story is never that simple. That’s why today’s episode digs into the local history of night herons and explores the relationship between development and Oakland’s natural ecosystems – featuring interviews with Golden Gate Audubon Society’s youth programs manager Clayton Anderson and journalist Sam Lefebvre, who recently asked “Is Oakland failing its official bird?” in The Oaklandside. Get the t-shirt here: https://oaklandish.com/collections/east-bay-yesterday See images for this story here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/they-insist-on-being-here/ See more work from T.L.Simons here: https://www.tlsimons.com/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

The first part of this episode originally aired three years ago, when the Oakland Museum opened an exhibit of Dorothea Lange photos called Politics of Seeing. Now, the Oakland Museum is launching a huge digital archive of Lange’s work, so I’ve decided to re-run the original episode plus a new interview with Drew Johnson, OMCA’s Curator of Photography and Visual Culture, about why these photos are worth a new look in 2020. Here’s the description for the original episode: Dorothea Lange is one of the most famous photographers of all time, but the local work she did during her many decades as an East Bay resident is often overlooked. This episode explores how she went from taking portraits of the Bay Area’s wealthiest families to documenting the poor and working class. Dorothea’s goddaughter, Elizabeth Partridge, and Drew Johnson, curator of the Oakland Museum’s new Dorothea Lange exhibition, share insights on what makes her photographs so iconic—and why they’re still so relevant. To see the Dorothea Lange Digital Archive, visit: https://dorothealange.museumca.org/ To see images and links to related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Oysters may seem like a simple creature at first glance – they can’t even move on their own – but their presence can determine the health of an entire ecosystem. Just like tree rings hold clues to Earth’s history, oyster shells can reveal much about past millennia. In the San Francisco Bay, studying the rise and fall of oysters illuminates Ohlone culture, the Gold Rush era, industrialization, public health, and much more. Today’s episode, which was originally recorded as a virtual event, explores the history of Bay Area bivalves with Casey Harper, deputy director of Wild Oyster Project. Although local oyster populations were nearly wiped out following decades of pollution and habitat destruction, a few survivors were discovered in recent years, leading to a surge in restoration efforts. Despite challenges ranging from invasive predators to ocean acidification, groups like Wild Oyster Project are hopeful that these projects will grow to provide shelter for marine life, filter pollutants out of the water, and eventually mitigate sea level rise more effectively than concrete barriers. Listen now to hear all about the past (and potential future) of Bay Area oysters. Thank you to Daniel Wolfe of Creative Mornings Oakland for organizing this virtual event and to Christie Goshe from Tiny Oak Media for recording it. East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

I never planned to make an episode of this podcast about my own family history, but I’ve been spending more time thinking about my relatives, who are scattered across the country, ever since the coronavirus pandemic started. In particular, I’ve been worried about my grandmother (I call her Oma), who has been isolated in a Florida nursing home that banned visitors more than a month ago. From 1971 until 1975, my grandfather, Col. Jim Driscoll (I called him Opa), was stationed at the Oakland Army Base and during that time Oma volunteered there. I interviewed her a while ago about her East Bay years, but I never listened to the conversation until recently. Hearing it now, during this time of isolation and uncertainty, was a powerful experience. We discussed the improbability of finding love amidst war, the challenges of balancing military service with family, and the unexpected ways that life can spontaneously intersect with historical events. I’ll admit that revealing so much about my family make me anxious, but I hope that hearing my Oma look back on her tumultuous life with the kind of amused serenity that comes with old age will provide some solace, or at least a momentary escape, for everyone struggling with the surreal horrors and grinding frustrations of present reality. Another motivation for releasing this episode – and I say this with as much humility as possible – is that I’m hoping that it might inspire some of you to talk with your elders. Or, if you are an elder, to talk with the young people in your family or community. With loneliness spiking during this time of social distancing, what better remedy than dusting off that old treasure chest of distant memories and bonding over the process of unpacking them (and recording them)? If this prospect sounds intimidating, UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center has shared some tips for getting the most out of these kinds of conversations. Throughout my years of interviewing people about their lives, one thing I’ve realized is that the first few minutes are always the most awkward. People who have never been interviewed before are often self-conscious or shy about unearthing long-buried memories. With a bit of patience and encouragement, however, tiny trickles of recollections will inevitably start flowing together and a flood of stories will eventually pour forth. You just have to be willing to listen. East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Delilah Beasley didn’t have much education or money, but when she saw that African Americans were being ignored by history books, she knew she had to do something. Beasley ended up spending nearly a decade interviewing elders and digging through crumbling archives to compile “The Negro Trailblazers of California,” a book that rescued dozens of notable Black figures from historical oblivion. However, Beasley didn’t just focus on the past. Her weekly Oakland Tribune column, “Activities among the Negroes,” documented the East Bay’s Black community at a time when positive portrayals of people of color in the media were almost nonexistent. This episode explores Beasley’s life as a historian and journalist through a conversation with the authors of “Trailblazer: Delilah Beasley’s California” (Published by Clockshop), a new work by Dana Johnson and Ana Cecilia Alvarez. We discuss Beasley’s motivation, her impact, and why her work still remains so valuable. To see more about this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/we-were-being-erased/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Since I’ve had to postpone my boat tours due to the Coronavirus crisis, I’ve decided to move the discussion about Bay history to the podcast. My guest is Chris Carlsson, who also leads boat tours on the Bay and just published “Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes & Radical Histories” (Pluto Press). Our conversation begins with the arrival of the Spanish in 1776 and then explores how subsequent waves of newcomers radically impacted native people and ecosystems, often in devastating ways. Although we take a critical look at colonization, we don’t dwell exclusively on tragedies. Since the rise of the Save the Bay movement, an activist campaign spearheaded by three Berkeley women, the Bay has transformed from a vast cesspool of human and industrial waste to the site of dozens of restoration projects that are expanding marsh habitats and enticing great numbers of fish, birds, and marine mammals to return. Against the backdrop of our current economic turmoil and political uncertainty, we look back at the Bay as a contested space, and try to find lessons in its ebbs and flows. To see more about this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/eby-qa-8/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

How did the Bay Area’s housing crisis get so bad – and what might be done to solve it? These are the main questions Oakland-based New York Times reporter Conor Dougherty tackles in “Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America.” In addition to tracing the origins of policies that led to some of the most expensive property values in the nation, this wide-ranging book also follows the trajectories of families fighting massive rent increases, pro-development activists, besieged politicians and profit-seeking speculators. Refreshingly, Dougherty brings much-needed nuance to political battles that are often characterized by bitterness, hyperbole and scorched Earth-style Twitter wars. By exploring the many failures (and well-intentioned missteps) that led to this current shortage, the book offers a useful primer for anyone seeking to understand how Bay Area housing politics became so gridlocked and dysfunctional. “If there’s a rhyme to postwar history,” Dougherty writes. “It’s that whatever system we use, and whatever level of government is orchestrating it, when we think of cities as buildings and markets, and not collections of people, we are doomed to make the same mistakes.” Listen to the new episode to hear Conor Dougherty discuss what some of those mistakes were, why it’s so challenging to build affordable housing, the sharp rise in homelessness since the Reagan era, and much more To see images and links to related to this story, visit: eastbayyesterday.com/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In 1963, a Piedmont High science teacher decided to liven up biology class with a bird calling competition. This hatched an annual tradition that led to students shrieking and squawking in front of millions of TV viewers for nearly half a century. Today’s episode follows the trajectory of the Leonard J. Waxdeck Bird Calling Contest from the nest to the airwaves. How did this tiny enclave in the Oakland hills end up in the national spotlight for such a bizarre spectacle? Listen now to find out. Featuring interviews with: Piedmont High School librarian and Bird Calling Contest producer Kathryn Levenson and former participants Laurel Cecila, Joe Fendel, and Will Reicher. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Leonard J. Waxdeck. To see images and links to related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/ok-lets-go-crazy/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

In 1963, Northern California’s first African American State Assemblymember, Byron Rumford, championed a Fair Housing Act designed to prevent racial discrimination that severely limited where people of color could live. This bill, and the national laws it helped inspire, banned property owners from refusing to sell to potential buyers on the basis of race. As the Civil Rights movement gained momentum through these legislative victories, the end of segregation seemed within grasp. But now in 2020, amidst a tech-fueled real estate boom that’s sent home values soaring, the Bay Area is re-segregating as Black populations in wealthy areas dwindle and “neighborhoods with low pollution, high-quality schools and other resources have become increasingly inaccessible for African Americans.” In Byron Rumford’s former hometown of Berkeley, the percentage of African American residents has dropped from a high of nearly 25% during the 1970s to less than 10% today. The problem isn’t limited to California. According to The Center for Investigative Reporting, “a new epidemic of modern-day redlining has crept quietly across America. The gap in homeownership between African Americans and whites is now wider than it was during the Jim Crow era.” More than half a century after the Civil Rights Act was supposed to end housing discrimination the problem is getting worse in some ways. So what went wrong? The new episode explores this question through interviews with William Byron Rumford III, former California State Assemblymember E. Dotson Wilson, documentary filmmaker Doug Harris, and historian Ryan Reft. Listen now to learn what Byron Rumford’s story can tell us about why racism and real estate are so hard to untangle. To see images and links related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/unfair-housing/ East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

It's almost impossible to image what Oakland would look like today if the Western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad hadn't been established here in 1869. Where there had once been marshy wetlands, industry rushed in to build factories at this nexus of steel and sea. The railroad connected a broken country still recovering from the Civil War and solidified Oakland's position as a hub of global commerce, for better or worse. Oakland didn't choose this destiny for itself – the decision was made by "The Big Four," a cadre of robber barons who controlled the Central and Southern Pacific Railroad lines (and a host of related shell companies). This episode features an interview with Roland De Wolk, author of "American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford," a new book that explores the life of the man who served as president of the railroad companies as well as senator and governor of California. De Wolk also highlights undeniable parallels between the Big Four's predatory, monopolistic ethos and today's Silicon Valley business culture. The seed of Big Tech was planted by Leland Stanford and the university he founded. And just like during the Gilded Age, the East Bay is being impacted by tycoons disconnected from what their decisions mean to people living here. As Richard White, a Professor of American History at Stanford, wrote about the railroad bosses, “They laid hands on technology they did not understand, initiated sweeping changes, and saw these changes often take on purposes they did not intend.” To see photos related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/eby-qa-6/ East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support. Please donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Why did BART come "within a gnat's eyelash" of being derailed by voters before the first track had ever been laid? How did Berkeley force BART to go underground? What's the deal with BART managers getting busted by FBI sting operations? All these questions and many more are answered in this week's episode, which was recorded live at the Oakland Public Library on October 9, 2019. Michael Healy, who was BART's spokesperson for 32 years and wrote "The Dramatic History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System" (Heyday), shares an insider's look at the many triumphs, setbacks, and controversies that BART has faced since its mid-20th century inception. Listen now to hear the wide-ranging interview and audience Q&A. (Special thanks to Katie McMurran for recording this event.) East Bay Yesterday relies on listener support to survive. If you enjoy the episode, please donate: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Betty Reid Soskin is a living link to America’s long history of slavery. As a young woman, her best friend was her great-grandmother, who was enslaved for the first two decades of her life. When Betty attended the inauguration of Barack Obama she carried a photo of her great-grandma in her breast pocket – and she also carried memories of the many struggles that led to the election of America’s first black president. In this episode, Betty Reid Soskin shares stories of growing up in Oakland during the 1920s “when the hills used to burn every year.” She traces her journey from working in a segregated union hall during World War II to co-founding one of the East Bay’s first Black record stores to becoming “America’s oldest National Park ranger” at the age of 85. And she explains how living for nearly a century has allowed her to see patterns in history that give her hope for the future. Even though Betty’s 98th birthday is approaching, she’s still incredibly active. She recently published an autobiography, “Sign My Name to Freedom,” she’ll be releasing an album of her music next year, and a documentary about her life “No Time to Waste” will be premiering throughout the Bay Area starting later this month. Plus, she’s still delivering her renowned presentations to sold-out crowds at Rosie the River WWII Homefront National Park several times per week. Betty has no plans to retire any time soon. “As long as there are faces in that audience who have never heard those stories, they simply come alive for me,” she told me during our interview. East Bay Yesterday relies on listener support to survive. If you enjoy the episode, please donate: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

As hippies and radicals flooded into Berkeley during the sixties, the city faced mounting public health problems that ranged from bad acid trips to riot injuries. The Berkeley Free Clinic launched in 1969 to provide no-cost treatment to those who couldn’t afford (or didn’t feel comfortable dealing with) the mainstream healthcare system. 50 years later, this volunteer-driven collective running on a shoestring budget out of the basement of a vacant church is still delivering free medical and dental services to thousands. Featuring interviews with volunteers Clay Carter and Scott Carroll, who is also a board member, this episode explores the Berkeley Free Clinic’s origins, its evolution, and what other healthcare providers can learn from this model. Anyone interested in learning more about the clinic’s history is welcome to attend the 50th Anniversary Party on Saturday August 24 at Live Oak Park, which will include an appearance by co-founders Susan Cady McAllister & Ellen Koteen. East Bay Yesterday relies on listener support to survive. If you enjoy the episode, please donate: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

The previous episodes in this miniseries covered the early history of Canyon and this town’s fight for survival during the height of the hippie era. The conclusion of this trilogy explores this unusual little village’s trajectory since then. How did Canyon manage to transition out of the wild and experimental 1960s, while still holding onto many of the values that drew so many idealists out here? Listen now to find out. Bonus: Stay tuned after the credits to hear a cautionary tale about what *not* to do while tripping on psychedelics near an electric fence. If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

One of the Bay Area’s first business booms was the rapid growth of explosives manufacturing following the Gold Rush. The power of nitroglycerine and later dynamite enabled industrial-scale mining, continent-spanning railroads, and a total reshaping of California’s landscape. For many decades, the small Contra Costa town Hercules produced millions of tons of explosive chemicals that were used to move mountains, build cities, and wage wars. This episode features an interview with Stephen Lawton, a longtime resident of Hercules who co-authored a book all about his town’s earth-shattering history. If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday For more info about the Hercules history, including a link to Stephen Lawton’s book “Hercules”: http://herculeshistory.org/

How can history be used to challenge hate crimes? For the past 7 years, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee have been exploring questions like this through their Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tours. This episode covers some of the tour’s highlights and discusses the unpredictable nature of turning public streets into a classroom. Listen now to hear about the first South Asian LGBTQ publication, an influential anti-colonial movement, housing discrimination battles, and what Barnali and Anirvan think about Asians now outnumbering white people in Alameda County. To see photos and links related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/eby-qa-2/ If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday For more info about the Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour: http://www.berkeleysouthasian.org/

Ruth Beckford was known as “the Dance Lady” because she mentored several generations of young women through her popular classes and introduced the Bay Area to Afro-Haitian styles with her electrifying performances. She also co-founded the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program, which FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Ruth Beckford passed away on May 8, 2019. Reflecting on the diverse accomplishments of her former teacher and lifelong friend, Deborah Vaughan said “Ms. Beckford rode life until the wheels came off.” Although an iconic mural of Ms. Beckford will soon be covered by a new development, her 93 years of joy, activism and strength still loom large. This episode explores the life of a woman who collaborated with Maya Angelou, volunteered in women’s prisons, and much more. Featuring interviews conducted by the African American Museum & Library at Oakland and by Penny Peak for the Museum of Performance and Design, listen now for a powerful trip through nearly a century of Oakland history. To see photos and links related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/i-enjoyed-every-day/ To visit the African American Museum & Library at Oakland: http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/locations/african-american-museum-library-oakland To visit the Museum of Performance and Design: https://www.mpdsf.org/ If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

Jenny Odell wrote that her inspiration for “How to Do Nothing” was “grounded in a particular location, and that is the Morcom Amphitheater of Roses in Oakland, California.” Odell’s countless hours observing birds and other wildlife in this quiet neighborhood park led to the creation of her new book, which The New Yorker praised for “elegantly aligning the crisis in our natural world and the crisis in our minds.” For the first episode of East Bay Yesterday recorded in front of a live audience, I interviewed Jenny about how she challenges the “placelessness” that’s becoming ever more ubiquitous in our digital world. Honoring the book’s theme of “reconnecting with the world around us,” we discussed Chapel of the Chimes, the joys of AC Transit, Oakland’s oldest tree, and much more. [Big thank you to EM. Wolfman Bookstore for hosting and Katie McMurran for recording this conversation.] To see more information about this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/eby-qa-live/ If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

50 years ago, a group of students, activists and community members transformed a muddy, junk-filled parking lot into a park. When the University of California, under heavy pressure from Gov. Ronald Reagan, tore up the grass and surrounded the land with a heavily-guarded fence, this response triggered a surreal and tragic set of events. The maelstrom of violence that engulfed Berkeley in May 1969 would be almost impossible to believe if the cameras hadn't been rolling. Dozens were shot, hundreds were arrested, and thousands were teargassed – protesters and innocent bystanders alike. During the military occupation of Berkeley by National Guardsmen, a helicopter launched a chemical attack on the University campus, children were surrounded by bayonet-wielding soldiers, and journalists were detained under the supervision of brutally sadistic guards. Amidst this upheaval, Gov. Reagan told a group of reporters, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with, no more appeasement.” This episode explores the conflict with Tom Dalzell, the author of “The Battle for People’s Park” (Heyday Books), and through archival audio captured by KPFA-FM reporters in 1969 and 1970. If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday To see photos related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ To purchase “The Battle for People’s Park, Berkeley 1969”: https://aerbook.com/maker/productcard-4196911-4706.html Episode art: Photo: Ted Streshinsky; courtesy of the Streshinsky Family. Image used by kind permission of Heyday Books.

With the weather warming up, I thought now would be a great time for a deep dive into Lake Merritt (not literally!). First, this episode will explore the wild side of this body of water (which is technically a tidal estuary) with Constance Taylor, a naturalist with California Center for Natural History. Then, I’ll interview Children’s Fairyland director C.J. Hirschfield about the enchanting amusement park that’s been entertaining families on the shores of Lake Merritt since 1950. Listen now to hear about the origin of the lake’s geodesic dome, the real story behind Walt Disney’s “inspiration,” and much more. If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: https://www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday To see photos related to this episode: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ To learn more about California Center for Natural History: https://calnature.org/ To learn more about Children’s Fairyland: https://fairyland.org/

During the 1960s, young people from all over the country flooded into a small village tucked behind the Oakland hills amidst a grove of towering redwoods. Some of them just came to party, but many sought to build an alternative to what they saw as the violence and reckless consumerism of mainstream society. In the forest, they built psychedelic cabins out of scavenged materials and taught each other how to garden, sew, raise chickens and goats, play music, bake bread, and much more. By the end of the decade, this hippie enclave faced several major threats: a crackdown by local government agencies and – even more terrifying – a catastrophic explosion that killed a man and left several of the town’s most important structures in smoldering ruins. This episode explores Canyon’s fight for survival… and why it was worth saving. Featuring interviews with: Christina Bernard, Ed Johnson, Karen Pickett, Deva Rajan, Vicki Saputo, Esperanza Pratt Surls, and also an archival interview with George Menge, conducted about two decades ago by Roberta Llewellyn. (Big thank you to Digital Roots Studio for digitizing the audio cassette.) If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

During the Gold Rush, Canyon had more residents than Oakland, but today few people know that this tiny village nestled in the East Bay hills even exists. The “Deep in Canyon” mini-series will explore the history of what author John Van Der Zee called “the last rustic community in metropolitan America.” This episode covers Canyon’s many transformations between the 1840s and the early 1960s – from its rise as a Wild West logging town to the dawn of the “hippie invasion,” with many colorful detours along the way. Featuring interviews with: Vicki Saputo, Esperanza Pratt Surls and Karen Pickett. To see photos related to this story, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

This week's episode of OAKLORE features Nathan, Cassandra and Justin interviewing the producer and creator of East Bay Yesterday, Liam O'Donoghue. Liam shares how he goes about developing his stories and why it is important to capture local history. You can learn more about East Bay Yesterday at eastbayyesterday.com. About OAKLORE Oaklore is a show about Oaklanders whose changemaking stories inspire others to lead collective action in our city. Oaklore is a production of 378Media a project of 9th grade students at latitudehs.kinsta.cloud in Oakland, CA. You can visit our website at 378media.com and follow us on instagram and twitter @378media. MUSIC CREDITS Oaklore's theme song is Don't Hold Back by Great Scott. This week's episode features music from Lee Rosevere. Don't Hold Back by Great Scott https://soundcloud.com/slgreatscottCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported  — CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Start the Day by Lee Rosevere is licensed under a Attribution License through the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

This week’s episode of OAKLORE features Nathan, Cassandra and Justin interviewing the producer and creator of East Bay Yesterday, Liam O’Donoghue. Liam shares how he goes about developing his stories and why it is important to capture local history. You can learn more about East Bay Yesterday at eastbayyesterday.com. About OAKLORE Oaklore is a show about Oaklanders whose changemaking stories inspire others to lead collective action in our city. Oaklore is a production of 378Media a project of 9th grade students at latitudehigh.org in Oakland, CA. You can visit our website at 378media.com and follow us on instagram and twitter @378media. MUSIC CREDITS Oaklore’s theme song is Don’t Hold Back by Great Scott. This week’s episode features music from Lee Rosevere. Don't Hold Back by Great Scott https://soundcloud.com/slgreatscottCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported  — CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Start the Day by Lee Rosevere is licensed under a Attribution License through the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Instead of the usual narrative format, this episode is a one-on-one interview with Cheryl Fabio, the director of “Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy.” I interviewed Cheryl for my KPFA radio show this week and I enjoyed the interview so much, I've decided to share it as a podcast. Also, I wanted to spread the word about Cheryl’s upcoming film & artist talk series “Resistance, Resilience & Anticipation: A fresh look at the Black Arts Movement in Oakland.” For more about those events, check out: https://www.swfcenter4sj.org/ For info & upcoming screenings of “Evolutionary Blues,” check out: https://evolutionarybluesfilm.com/ If you enjoy the episode, please support East Bay Yesterday: https://www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday Since this interview is about the history of West Oakland blues, I also wanted to re-share one of my favorite episodes from 2017. Here is the original description of that program, which follows the Q&A with Cheryl Fabio… “The queen of the West Coast blues”: Sugar Pie DeSanto serves up sweet & spicy stories From jumping off pianos with James Brown to running the streets with Etta James, Sugar Pie DeSanto has led a wild life. In this episode, the soul singer shares memories of performing in Oakland’s legendary 1950s blues clubs, stunning global audiences with her risqué moves, and making grown men cry. As Sugar Pie puts it, “I’m one of the roughest women you could ever know. I ain’t to be played with!” Listen now to find out what happened when one aggressive fan learned this lesson the hard way. Special thanks to Mr. Jim Moore and Jasman Records. Support Sugar Pie DeSanto by purchasing her music at: sugarpiedesanto.com/

Stories about Berkeley’s rebellious student movement of the 1960s often start with the launch of the Free Speech Movement. But the roots of this pivotal event go all the way back to the previous decade, when a campus group fed up with the innocuous role of student government started rallying around controversial political issues such as civil rights. This episode explores the history of SLATE, a student-led organization that rarely gets credit for their influential role in helping spark a decade of social change. This episode features interviews with former SLATE members Mike Miller, David Armour, Cindy Kamler and Michael Tigar. Interview were conducted by Martin Meeker and Todd Holmes of UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center. To read full interview transcripts, check out the SLATE Oral History Project: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/oral-history-center/projects/slate If you enjoy this episode, please consider supporting East Bay Yesterday on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

THE BEST LITTLE SWIMMER Terry Galloway is ten years old and absolutely hot for summer camp. The only problem is, her family can’t afford it. But after she fails a hearing test at school, Terry learns that she is deaf -- and also eligible to attend The Lions Camp for Crippled Children, a summer camp that is free to kids with disabilities. The summer of 1960, just got way more exciting. Terry Galloway is a writer, director, and performer for stage, radio, and film. For more about Terry’s childhood in Texas,  check out her book Mean Little Deaf Queer. Producer: Adizah Eghan Original Score: Leon Morimoto  THE DOG THAT WENT AROUND THE WORLD The story of the first dog to travel around the world (and refuse a free steak). For more information on Owney's travels, be sure to check out the Post Office Museum's interactive map. But brace yourself, there's a lot of pins... Producer: Joe Rosenberg Original Score: Leon Morimoto  QUAKE CITY HERO In 1989, an enormous earthquake struck the Bay Area. One of Oakland’s major arteries, the Cypress Freeway, collapsed. And one guy, a local Oaklander, left his home, and dove into the wreckage to save lives. This story is produced by Liam Donoghue, host and producer of the podcast East Bay Yesterday. If you want to hear about Bruce Lee's most notorious fight, or Oakland's oldest soul food cook, or grizzly bears, you can find the show here. Co-production by Eliza Smith Sound design by Davey Kim Producer: Liam Donoghue and Eliza Smith Season 9 Episode 33 

Liam O'Donoghue and Peter Finch joined Hana Baba in studios in an East Bay v. San Francisco smackdown for our membership drive.

In 1989, an enormous earthquake struck the Bay Area. One of Oakland’s major arteries, the Cypress Freeway, collapsed. And one man named Raven, a local Oaklander, left his home, and dove into the wreckage to save lives. This story is produced by Liam O'Donoghue, host and producer of the podcast East Bay Yesterday. If you want to hear about Bruce Lee's most notorious fight, or Oakland's oldest soul food cook, or grizzly bears, you can find the show here.  Producer: Liam O'Donoghue and Eliza SmithOriginal Score: Davey Kim Season 9 Episode 7

When the Cypress Freeway collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake, many Oakland residents risked their own lives to rescue victims trapped in the ruins. In this episode, a collaboration with Snap Judgement, Raven Roberts shares his memories of what it was like to live through that disaster – and the traumatizing aftermath. Raven’s story reveals that even though West Oakland has changed dramatically since the freeway came down, many long-time residents still carry deep scars from the quake. This story was co-produced by Snap Judgement -- an Oakland-based, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast. To listen to their amazing catalogue of stories, visit: http://snapjudgment.org/ Snap Judgement on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/snapjudgment Extra thanks to Eliza Smith, Mark Ristich and Glynn Washington for giving “East Bay Yesterday” a platform on Snap Judgement and Davey Kim the incredible sound design!

Up until the 1850s, the East Bay was home to hundreds of grizzlies and some of the tallest redwoods in the history of the planet. Within about a decade of the Gold Rush, nearly all of the bears and the trees were wiped out. This episode looks back at the local environment before colonization—and explores how such a massive wave of devastation was able to change the landscape so quickly. Today's show features interviews with Laura Cunningham, author of “State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California,” and Amelia Sue Marshall, author of “East Bay Hills: A Brief History.” For more information on these books, visit: https://lcunningham-art.com/books https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467137256 About Long Lost Oakland: The goal of Long Lost Oakland is not to evoke nostalgia or romanticize past eras. It’s to highlight the constantly shifting nature of Oakland in midst of a moment when we can look around and literally watch the landscape of our city change before our eyes. This multimedia collaboration will consist of a podcast mini-series, several events, a walking tour and a hand-illustrated, poster-size map. The full-color map will include an array of geographic features ranging from buildings and infrastructure to plants and animals. The unifying theme of these objects is that they once existed in Oakland, but don’t anymore. Long Lost Oakland will blend art and history in order to explore how our past connects to the world we live in today and the future we may be living in soon. *Kickstarter to fund map printing coming soon!* To receive updates, follow East Bay Yesterday on social media and sign up for the newsletter: https://eastbayyesterday.com/ https://tinyletter.com/EastBay_Yesterday

John Muir died on Christmas Eve of 1914, but his gravesite is finally just opening up to the public now. In honor of this occasion, we’ll take a look at a side of “the father of America’s National Parks” that’s not widely known — his life in Contra Costa County. This episode features interviews with John Muir Historic Site park rangers who share stories of Muir’s local adventures, his family and why he was often spotted carrying “pillowcases full of money.” For more info on visiting Muir’s grave: https://www.nps.gov/jomu/index.htm For more info on East Bay Yesterday: https://eastbayyesterday.com/

Instead of one long story, the 25th episode of East Bay Yesterday features four shorties. In one interview, a man reminisces about using very unusual bait while fishing with his grandpa at the Berkeley pier. In another, a longtime Oakland postal employee recalls his close calls with stray gunfire. From underground circuses to sideshows, this episode compiles quirky memories into an audio time capsule of East Bay history. Support for this episode was provided by my dentist, Dr. Curtis Perry. You can find information about his dental practice at: http://www.oaklandsmiles.com

For decades, millions of drivers passing through Emeryville saw an ever-changing array of giant statues along the bayshore. In addition to the towering wooden vikings, dragons and other whimsical creatures, activists used driftwood and trash to build monumental projects responding to the tumultuous political era. This episode traces the rise and fall of this “renegade drive-thru art gallery” and explores the concept of public art. Featuring interviews with Joey Enos, Tom Enos, Denise Neal, Lincoln Cushing and Tim Drescher. Be sure to follow East Bay Yesterday on social media to see photos of the “Emeryville mudflat sculptures.”

From 1973 until 1982, the Black Panthers operated a school in East Oakland that has been called “arguably the Party’s most important organizing legacy.” Although the school solved many problems that continue to plague America’s education system, these lessons have been largely forgotten. Today’s episode explores the history of the Oakland Community School with a former student, a former teacher, and the school’s former director, Ericka Huggins. [Subscribe to East Bay Yesterday though iTunes or Stitcher]