East Bay Yesterday

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

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

Growing up in Oakland, Mike lost many friends and family members in the streets. Three years ago, he almost became a victim, too, when he was shot seven times while sitting in a car with his daughter. Since then, Mike has recovered his health and built a thriving shoe customization business*. He also moved to a safer area. Today’s episode features a deep exploration of Oakland’s violent history with somebody who understands it intimately. *Check out Magic Mike Customs here: https://www.instagram.com/magicmikecustoms/

Tobie Gene Levingston left behind his life as a Louisiana sharecropper in the mid-1950s to work at a Oakland metal foundry. Within a few years, he started the East Bay Dragons, which grew to be one of the most legendary Black motorcycle clubs in the world. This episode goes into the Dragons’ clubhouse for a deep conversation with two long-time members, Melvin Shadrick and Picasso, to explore how the club has managed to thrive all these years – and what it feels like to cruise past another motorcycle pack on the highway going 140 miles per hour. This episode’s art is a watercolor painted by Oakland-based illustrator and author Robert Liu-Trujillo. You can see more of Rob’s work at http://work.robdontstop.com/

The style, music and politics of the East Bay have had a major influence on hip-hop since even before the very first rap album dropped. Photojournalist Eric Arnold recently mapped out the most important locations of this history in the “Hip Hop Atlas of The Bay,” part of the Oakland Museum’s exhibition: “RESPECT: Hip-Hop Style & Wisdom.” In this episode, Arnold shares stories about the Oakland dance trends that laid the groundwork for “b-boy” culture, how Too Short changed the music industry and much more. The Oakland Museum’s hip hop exhibition is running through August 12th. Details here: http://museumca.org/exhibit/respect-hip-hop-style-wisdom

North Oakland’s Golden Gate neighborhood has undergone a rapid demographic shift over the past decade as many longtime Black residents have moved out and wealthier, younger white people have moved in. This episode features five stories that explore how folks are navigating these changes. Interviews for this episode were conducted by cultural researcher Sue Mark, founder of Commons Archive. To learn more about the “neighborhood memory bank” that Sue is building, visit: http://www.commonsarchive.net/ The woman featured in this episode’s art is Josephine Lee, who was born in Oakland on August 29, 1925. As you’ll hear in her interview, she is one of Oakland’s many Black residents who refuses to leave the town she loves. You can see more of Josephine Lee and the other residents featured in this video: https://vimeo.com/138672648

The abandoned pink building on the corner of MacArthur and Martin Luther King Jr. Way has visually dominated that busy intersection for so long that it feels like a monument. But what this monument represents depends on your perspective. It could by a symbol of what happened to one of Oakland’s thriving Black business corridors and the ongoing exodus of a community. Or it could be a symbol of how the revolutionary dreams of the Occupy era literally went down in flames. Or it could symbolize the East Bay’s insane real estate market, where the same piece of property could sell for $90,000 in 2012 and then $3.2 million a few years later. This episode explores these questions with journalist Sam Lefebvre, who recently dug into this history for Open Space magazine. Here’s a link to Sam’s article: “Nine Tenths of the Law” https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2018/05/nine-tenths-of-the-law/

Following the 1906 earthquake, Oakland’s Lew Hing supported thousands of victims from San Francisco’s Chinatown who were turned away from official relief camps due to rampant discrimination. On the grounds of his massive Pacific Coast Cannery in West Oakland, Lew fed and sheltered this marginalized community when nobody else would. This episode explores how a self-made mogul overcome California’s vicious anti-Chinese racism to become one of the most powerful businessmen in the early 20th century Bay Area. We’ll also take a tour of the Pacific Cannery Lofts to see what’s left from when the East Bay was the canning capital of the Pacific coast. Featuring interviews with: -Bruce Quan, Lew Hing’s great-grandson -Don Hausler, retired Oakland librarian -Rick and Nancy Holliday, who converted the abandoned cannery into a residential development