“Civic” Podcast

The First Draft of 50 Years of LGBTQ History

04.12.2021
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The Bay Area Reporter distributed its first edition on April 1, 1971. While publisher Bob Aaron Ross may have chosen April Fool’s Day as a light-hearted start for the gay community’s latest bar “rag,” the newspaper would go on to do serious journalism, covering the major events of the post-Stonewall era.

Opinion
Activists join the ACT UP 30th anniversary gathering rally in March 2017 at St. Vincent Triangle Park in New York City.

Long-Term AIDS Survivors Launch Advocacy Movement

09.17.2020
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AIDS2020: Virtual, the biannual conference of the International AIDS Society, held in early July, marked a turning point for long-term HIV/AIDS survivors — and not a good one. Five of us in San Francisco who have been on the front lines of the fight for our LGBTQ and HIV communities from the very beginning, left the event feeling sidelined and fed up. So, we met to discuss the myriad issues confronted by us long-term survivors. The result: The San Francisco Principles 2020, which we hope will be the seed for a new movement.

LGBTQ

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Goes Virtual

08.10.2020
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The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has been an institution within the LGBTQ community since 1978. Now, like many organizations, it’s scrambling to shift its focus to virtual events. The group’s annual gala, too, will be going virtual.

LGBTQ
The subjects of “Unsettled”: Junior, Mari, Cheyenne and Subhi. Photo courtesy of Open Door Productions

LGBTQ Refugee Doc Debuts on Public Television, Streaming

06.26.2020
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The San Francisco Bay Area has a reputation for being a kind of “queer promised land,” says filmmaker Tom Shepard. In the documentary “Unsettled,” that notion is put to the test. The film follows four LGBT refugees as they try to build new lives in San Francisco after fleeing violence and discrimination in their home countries.

Social Justice
Out in the Bay producers

LGBTQ Show Returns, Explores Lessons for Activists

06.17.2020
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As San Francisco marks the 50th Anniversary of the first LGBTQ rights march, the program “Out in the Bay” is returning to the air on KSFP, a radio station created by the San Francisco Public Press. “Out in the Bay” returns after a four-year hiatus. It ran weekly on public radio station KALW from 2004 to 2016, covering a pivotal period in the LGBTQ rights movement that saw the legalization of same-sex marriage, the enactment of hate-crime legislation and major advances in the rights of transgender people. Mel Baker, producer and contributor for “Civic,” spoke with “Out in the Bay” founding producer and host Eric Jansen and producer Truc Nguyen about the show and the parallels between the LGBTQ rights movement and the broader fight for civil rights. The brutal, homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998 energized nationwide protests against hate crimes, Jansen said.

human rights
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San Francisco Pride Goes Virtual Because of Pandemic

05.27.2020
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Every year, San Francisco Pride events bring hundreds of thousands of people to the city during the last week of June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots in New York City, which kicked off the modern LGBTQ movement. This year was expected to be larger than ever, marking the 50th anniversary of San Francisco’s first march, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced its abrupt cancellation on April 14, 2020.
 

Community
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Latinos in This Liberal City: From San Francisco’s Big Strike to Gay Liberation

07.09.2019
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Years before charting the evolution and diversity of Latino political life in the city, a historian came here to become an activist. His book recalls major battlegrounds from the 1930s to the 1970s: union campaigns; civil rights organizing; elections; Great Society mobilizations; and feminist, gay and lesbian activism. Read an excerpt from “Latinos and the Liberal City” by Eduardo Contreras.

City Hall
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Spare Room? Mayoral Challenger Zhou Says You Could Help Homelessness Crisis

05.21.2018
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Ellen Lee Zhou has a plan to help end San Francisco’s homelessness crisis. And it could involve you. Zhou, a public-health worker, said that if elected mayor, she would pay homeowners monthly stipends to house and mentor some of the city’s estimated 4,300 unsheltered residents. Interested? Sixth in a series analyzing the mayoral candidates’ records and pledges on housing and homelessness.