"Joanne [Griffith]'s work is centered on one theme: not to offer information as a point of journalistic fact, but to act as a conduit for debate and conversation, especially around issues relating to the African diaspora experience." So writes Brian Shazor, director of the Pacifica Radio Archives, in the foreward to Griffith's new book Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America (City Lights Books, 206pp, $16.95). Griffith will be presenting her work, part of an interactive project to archive the state of African Americans in the United States in the Bay Area this week -- starting tonight (Wed/8) at the Museum of the African Diaspora. Read more »

“One never knows after someone dies what happens to their legacy. Sometimes it becomes a part of history and sometimes it grows,” Karen Korematsu -remarked in a phone interview with the Guardian this week. Her father, civil rights activist Fred Korematsu, will be honored statewide with his own official day on Mon/30. You can celebrate his legacy locally at the Oakland Museum of California’s Lunar New Year event on Sun/29, where Karen will be speaking about her dad’s contribution to our cultural heritage. Read more »

Guardian history writer Lucy Schiller is exploring the city street-by-street in the slow week inter-holiday weekends. Today, learn about Junipero Serra's right-hand man who now has a Bayview street named after him. Click here for yesterday's installment on Laguna and McAllister Streets.

Palou AvenueRead more »

Guardian history writer Lucy Schiller is exploring the city street-by-street in the slow week inter-holiday weekends. Today, learn about the laundry pool of Laguna Street and the bravery of Matthew Hall McAllister. Click here for yesterday's installment on Green and Gilbert Streets.

Laguna Street

Named for Washerwoman’s LagoonRead more »

Guardian history writer Lucy Schiller is exploring the city street-by-street in the slow week inter-holiday weekends. Today, learn about a newspaper editor that died in a duel and a ghost from Philadelphia. Click here for yesterday's installment on Brannan Street and Geary Boulevard. Read more »

Guardian history writer Lucy Schiller is exploring the city street-by-street in the slow week inter-holiday weekends. Today, learn about Samuel Brannan's shipment of Mormons to San Francisco and John Geary side jobs (which include governor of Philadelphia). Click here for yesterday's installment on Baker Street. Read more »

Guardian history writer Lucy A. Schiller is examining SF's history corner by corner this week -- in this piece, the murder in Baker Street's torrid past

It should come as no surprise that many of San Francisco’s streets are named for old white men. After all, many financially successful California pioneers were just that (occasionally minus the “old”). But the figures referenced by San Franciscan alleys, thoroughfares, boulevards, and avenues do hold some insight into the city’s past. The picture of 19th century San Francisco painted by its street names is a wildly weird one. Common themes: lawlessness, violence, sometimes ugly individualism, and the occasional progressive value.

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It’s easy to get a little romantic standing in a beam of filtered sunlight inside Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. The 61-acre expanse of ivy and eucalyptus feels like a remnant of an earlier, wilder San Francisco. 

But the densely tangled forest backing UCSF’s medical campus is actually man-made. It harkens back to the heyday of good old Adolph Sutro, bathman, silver magnate, and forest enthusiast. Sutro covered the mountain on his sandy property with many of the trees standing today. Read more »

“The wild turkey…is a finer representative of America than the eagle,” boldly stated the Chronicle in a 1909 five-paragraph ode to the noble fowl. Maybe for the rest of the country, but not for California, where wild turkeys were introduced from – get this – Mexico in 1877. 

So is it really our bird if it’s not native to the state? An ex-judge in Illinois had a lot to say on the matter.

John Dean Caton, who penned such classics as The Origin of a Small Race of Turkeys actually sent live young turkeys to California, turkeys he had raised himself from eggs found in his rural Illinois backyard. Read more »