California Audiovisual Preservation Project

  • Tune-in on Sacramento: crisis in the state colleges

    A panel discussion on the past, present and future of the California State College system in light of the current financial crisis. Participants are Sacramento State College professors Harry Aron, psychology; Leonard Cain, sociology; Marc Tool, economics; James Lucas, psychology; and Ross Koen, Legislative Advocate for the Association of California State College Professors. The moderator…

  • The biologist and the utility

    Elsa Knight Thompson and Joan McIntyre interview John Brian “Joe” Neilands, professor of biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, on his petition for a rehearing before the State Public Utilities Commission on the nuclear reactor proposed for Bodega Bay. Dr. Neilands questions the role of the University of California in not defending what he…

  • From the Mission to Mill Valley: the history of the Irish in San Francisco (Part 2 of 2)

    Documentary on the history of Irish immigration and assimilation in San Francisco. Part 2 focuses on the social and family life of the Irish in the days when they were the majority in the now heavily Latino district The Mission; the move to suburbs after WWII; the changing nature of the Irish immigrant; the significant…

  • Jarvis-Gann alert

    KPFA’s Helen Mickiewicz produced this news program examining the bill cutting property taxes and services in California, known as Proposition 13. Cheryl McDonald examines how the Jarvis-Gann Amendment has adversely affected educational services in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wendell Harper reports on the mass layoffs of public employees in Alameda County. Joanne Mar looks…

  • The International Hotel

    For over fifteen years tenants of the International Hotel, primarily elderly Filipinos, struggled to defend themselves against eviction from their home. The issue reached dramatic proportions in San Francisco, with Sheriff Richard Hongisto going to jail for initially refusing to carry out the eviction and Mayor George Moscone risking an entire political career on the…

  • Best of the Cockettes / Martin Worman and Scrumbly Koldewyn.

    Kevin Burke from People’s Theatre at KPFA interviews Martin Worman and Scrumbly Koldewyn from the Cockettes, the early ’70s San Francisco-based drag and theater troupe. Worman and Koldewyn discuss the history of the Cockettes, including their forming under the direction of Hibiscus and their first big show in June 1970 at Hollywood Babylon. They discuss…

  • Over a matter of eight little islands (Episode 2 of 2)

    Documentary on a rally against Japanese colonization of the Tiao-Yu Tai islands off of the coast of Taiwan in St. Mary’s Square in San Francisco’s Chinatown, held by the Northern California Tiao-Yu Tai Defense League. Franz Schurmann (1926-2010), professor of sociology at University of California, Berkeley, provides context for the rally. Contains excerpts from a…

  • A case in point

    A documentary study of de facto segregation in Los Angeles, produced by Jim Osborn of KPFK. The case in point is the boundary between the White South Gate High School and the Black David Starr Jordan High, just a mile and a half away. The board of education is caught between the United Civil Rights…

  • Five of Los Siete

    Five members of Los Siete de la Raza discuss their imprisonment for the killing of San Francisco policeman Joseph Brodnik on May 1, 1970 at a press conference at the San Francisco Hall of Justice in June, 1970. The men discuss their relation to other liberation movements like the Black Panther Party, the politics of…

  • The Oakland general strike of 1946 / produced by the New American Movement and the Oakland Study Group.

    At 5:00 a.m. on December 3, 1946, over 100,000 workers in Oakland, California went out on strike. This massive work stoppage was called to protest police action in escorting strikebreakers and scab merchandise through union picket lines at two Oakland department stores, both on strike at the time. This little-known event is the topic of…