Monday, March 18, 2024
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Tags John Lennon

Tag: John Lennon

How Stevie Wonder helped create Martin Luther King Day

At Dr. King’s funeral, Stevie Wonder learned of John Conyers’ bill to make his birthday a national holiday. To overcome the resistance of conservative politicians, Wonder put his career on hold, led rallies from coast to coast and galvanized millions of Americans with his passion and integrity. But it took 15 years.

Aretha Franklin, the radical Queen of Soul

After gracing the planet for 76 years, Aretha Franklin joined the ancestors Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. President Obama: “Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade – our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”

Original Black Panther Elbert ‘Big Man’ Howard broadcasts jazz liberation

As a founding member of the Black Panther Party at the age of 28, Howard swiftly became the party’s minister of information, editing the group’s official newspaper, traveling to Japan as a spokesman and initiating a free medical clinic for sickle-cell anemia and a work-study program for parolees at Merritt College. Now, at age 78, Elbert "Big Man" Howard hosts Jazz Connections, a biweekly jazz show on KRCB-FM in Rohnert Park, and Jazz Styles, a monthly show on KOWS-FM in Sebastopol – playing the same music that he and his comrades relaxed and shared ideas to 50 years ago.

Toward racial peace in all prisons

The call for racial peace came from Pelican Bay SHU – the hole. It was a brave, human and needed call for racial harmony. Since I’m a believer in peace and realness – one people, one race – I must echo their cry and add my voice to the chorus. I think it is a call all peace groups around the world, inside and outside of prisons, would welcome.

The Panther party for Tupac’s birthday

Tupac Shakur, a very talented rapper and actor who defined the aspirations and frustrations of a generation, was shot on Sept. 7, 1996, and died on Sept. 13. On June 16, Bobby Beats, the father of Digital Underground’s Money B and a former Black Panther, organized one of the biggest, most exciting and most meaningful Tupac birthday parties in history.

An interview with Kevin Cooper: We may be sending an innocent...

Kevin Cooper has been locked down on death row in San Quentin for the past 26 years. He was convicted of the 1983 murder of the Ryen family, although no reliable evidence showed him to be guilty. On the contrary, the case has overwhelming evidence suggesting that he is in fact an innocent man.

Sidewalks are still for people, Harvey Milk!

On Sidewalks are for People Day, May 22, the people decided to reclaim San Francisco sidewalks. Then Berkeley folks asked, “Can we do that too?” Then Portland folks were like, “We’ll do something simultaneously.”