Upcoming Events + Classes
July events! See details below…
• Jobs for Artists!–Tuesday, July 7th
• District Elections in SF–Monday, July 13th
• Hubert Harrison: Voice of Harlem Radicalism–Sunday, July 26th
Jobs for Artists! A New Deal for the Arts in the 21st Century with Jeff Chang, Gray Brechin, Arlene Goldbard and poets Cyrus Armajani, Chito Cuellar, Kaira Espinoza, Maria Poblet, & James Tracy
Tuesday, July 7th, doors open at 6:30 pm, program at 7 pm
Audre Lorde Room, The Women’s Building, 3543 18th St., San Francisco, wheelchair accessible
In the 1930s, the “New Deal” Works Progress Administration created jobs for tens of thousands of artists and writers, including authors such as John Cheever, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, radio journalist Studs Terkel, and painters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Rockwell Kent. In the 1970s, the CETA program funded artist-organizers who helped create the Cultural Centers that now exist in San Francisco’s neighborhoods. Today a new movement is emerging to promote a 21st century New Deal for the arts. Jobs for Artists! will feature a panel discussion on the rich legacy of federal jobs programs for artists and writers, and build support for a larger effort timed with the 75th anniversary of the WPA in 2010. Featuring New Deal historian Gray Brechin, cultural journalist Jeff Chang, and Arlene Goldbard, co-organizer of a May 2009 White House briefing on the arts, community, social justice and national recovery. With short readings and original performances by local poets honoring the great work of WPA-sponsored artists and writers.
$5-10 donation requested, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Near 16th Street BART, MUNI lines 33, 26, 14, 49. Call 415-710-0187 for more information.
This event is part of LaborFest a month-long series of cultural events commemorating the 1934 San Francisco general strike. Cosponsored by the CCSF Department of Labor and Community Studies Program and the Center for Political Education.
Gray Brechin is a Research Fellow for the Living New Deal Project of the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley, and the author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin.
Jeff Chang is the author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. His recent article in The Nation, “The Creativity Stimulus” described the importance of public culture to social change.
Arlene Goldbard is a writer, speaker and consultant currently based in Berkeley. Information about her latest book, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development and other writings is available at www.arlenegoldbard.com.
District Elections in SF: How Do “We the People” Become the Driving Force?
With community and labor organizers, N’Tanya Lee (Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth*), Calvin Welch (Housing Justice*), Chito Cuellar (UNITE HERE Local 2*) and activist Sasha Magee
Monday, July 13th, 7 pm
474 Valencia Street
Centro del Pueblo Auditorium
b/t 15th and 16th, San Francisco
wheelchair accessible
Progressives who fought for San Francisco’s District Elections in the 1970s and again in the 2000s, focused not on individual candidates – but on the broader movement for building grassroots power, developing people’s consciousness, and creating democratic structures to keep officials accountable.
District Elections in San Francisco - How do “We the People” become the driving force?, will trace the history of district elections that brought Harvey Milk to prominence in the 70s, and will look at the district town hall meetings and citywide Community Congresses, structures that developed an agenda and demands which elected officials had to respond to. In the context of the city’s current budget crisis, labor and community organizers will engage in a lively debate on how we can continue to build on the progressive gains of the 2008 elections, and fight for elected officials to follow the lead of the people.
$5-$10 donation requested, no one turned away for lack of funds
Childcare and Spanish interpretation available upon request (please request by July 8th by e-mailing center@politicaleducation.org or calling 415-431-1918)
*for identification purposes only
Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918
a presentation by scholar Jeffrey B. Perry
Sunday, July 26th, 1 pm
2868 Mission St. (at 25th)
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
at the Labor Fest Book Fair
wheelchair accessible
Join author, Jeffrey B. Perry at the Labor Fest Book Fair for a presentation on the life of Hubert Harrison (1883-1927), an immensely skilled writer, union organizer, theoretician and orator who strongly influenced the Black Liberation Movement in the early 20th century.
Born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands and Harlem-based, Harrison, was the foremost Black organizer and theoretician with the Socialist Party of New York, the editor of the “Negro World,” and the principal radical influence on the Marcus Garvey movement. A self-described, “radical internationalist,” he was also a postal labor unionist, a union organizer (with both the Hotel Workers and the Pullman Porters), an IWW supporter, and early proponent of birth control. More than any other political leader of his era, Harrison combined class consciousness and anti-white-supremacist race consciousness into a coherent political radicalism.
Jeffrey B. Perry is an independent, working class scholar and long-time activist who preserved and inventoried the Hubert H. Harrison papers. He is the editor of “A Hubert Harrison Reader” (Wesleyan University Press, 2001).
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