Monday, March 12, 2018: Women Against Imperialism Oral History Project

Kate Raphael talks with Jennifer Beach and Judith Mirkinson, two members of Women Against Imperialism, a Bay Area feminist collective that organized hundreds of actions and actions large and small between 1981 and 1993. For a number of years they organized an annual International Women's Day march in San Francisco that brought hundreds or thousands of women into the street. We're also joined by scholar Brooke Lober, creator of the Women Against Imperialism Oral History Project.

Get MP3 of this interview. 58:20 min

Women Against Imperialism was a grassroots, feminist, anti-imperialist solidarity organization formed in San Francisco in 1981. The group’s founders comprised the women’s caucus of the Bay Area chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. A small, local organization whose members also worked with a range of other anti-prison, feminist, international solidarity, LGBT, and anti-war organizations, Women Against Imperialism’s work primarily consisted of direct action organizing, political education activities, and internal political study. Primary areas of focus included support for women political prisoners; sex trade and trafficking; international solidarity (Central America; Palestine; Philippines; Puerto Rico; South Africa); militarism; and reproductive justice. One of the group’s most consistent projects was co-organizing an annual International Women’s Day march in San Francisco (1983-1996). from Freedom Archives


Click here to listen now. 59:50 min 


Also on today's show:
Best-Selling Author Kristin Hannah

Monday, June 27, 2016: S.F. Mime Troupe

Listen now or Get MP3. 23:14 min







Kate Raphael sits down with long-time SF Mime Troupe performers and collective members Keiko Shimosato Carreiro and Velina Brown, to talk about the history of the troupe, their careers and the new show, SCHOOLED, which debuts next weekend in Berkeley.

The Tony Award-winning SF Mime Troupe opens in Berkeley July 2 & 3, then San Francisco July 4 with its 57th season premiering "Schooled"

Education. It's like the weather: everyone has an opinion but nobody does anything about it. That's how Livina Jones feels about her son Tom's new school, Eleanor Roosevelt High. With it's old textbooks, crumbling classrooms, and racist treatment of kids just like hers Livina believes Roosevelt is exactly the sort of school that can benefit from a little free-market common sense. The nanny-state government has failed to see students as individuals, and failed to give them the real-world skills they'll need to get ahead. So who says it isn't time for some big money, for-profit schooling?
Edith Orocuru, for one. She's the long serving history/civics/American government/basketball coach at Eleanor Roosevelt, and she's willing to fight for her version of education as long as her reconstructed hips will allow. But is she fighting for a system that can be fixed, or is she just too blind by her past to see how times have left her and her school behind? And when an efficiency expert, Mr. Babbit, is assigned to improve her class is it a sign that Edith is behind the times, or a sign of something more sinister? And with privatization on the line, and a Wall Street heavy hitter lined up to fold the entire district into his conglomerate, suddenly the next School Board election is more about a hidden agenda than the open curriculum. And when did the hall monitors start wearing brown shirts and arm bands?

• Bay Area Opening Weekend
  Cedar Rose Park
  Sat, Jul 2nd @ 2:00 PM (Music 1:30)
  Sun, Jul 3rd @ 2:00 PM (Music 1:30)
  1300 Rose St. & Chestnut St., Berkeley 
  Ticket Info: FREE (donation)
• Bay Area Opening Weekend
  Dolores Park
  Mon, Jul 4th @ 2:00 PM (Music 1:30)
  19th St. & Dolores St., San Francisco 
  Ticket Info: FREE (donation)

Click here to listen to the entire show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Homosexuality in the Middle East
Women's Community Calendar