 And we want to welcome you here today. We also want to welcome our friends on YouTube. Thank you for being here. We'll be sharing some links in the chat box for today's presentation, as well as library news and information. And as our presenter talks and resources come up, which I know they will, I will add those to the document and see if we can get those books and resources to you from our library. All right. So it is summer stride and summer stride is not just for kids. It's for all ages from what did I hear the other day, birth to grave. You can participate in summer stride and, you know, you do your 20 hours of reading, you get your wonderful, iconic S.F. Love libraries to bag with artwork by K. Ilani Juanita. We want to welcome you to the Aloni, to the Rami Tush Aloni Tribal lands and acknowledge those groups and families as the rightful stewards in the lands in which we reside here in our Bay Area. The library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members, and we encourage you to learn more about first person culture and land rights. And the link of our share has a great resource list. Every Tuesday night in summer, June, July and August, every Tuesday night, we have an offer talk this Tuesday. Alina Adams, who happens to be a Lowell alumni, is going to be joining us with her book, The Nesting Dolls. And on Wednesday, we have Writers of Color, their new book right now, S.F., is a writing group and their new book, Essential Truths. So we'll have a full night of readers. So come check that out. It's sure to be interesting. On July 11th, the California Northern California Book Awards and just so much July 15th, we have S.F. Arts Commission and the city partner to have a COVID artist in residence during the pandemic. So the panel will be coming to talk to us about what work that they did. And like I said, we just have so much this summer. So please consider signing up for it and checking us out. We have events all week long, every single week. It's just amazing. We are here. So and it's cold out because it's summer in San Francisco. So it's a good time to spend time at the library virtually or in person. All right. So today I'm so excited to have back and welcome back Linda Jackson. Linda Jackson today is going to be talking about Black music in San Francisco. And it is June is African American Music Appreciation Month. So yay. And I really appreciate Linda for being here and taking us on this musical journey. And Linda Jackson is a native San Franciscan, a writer, historian, photographer and food artist. She holds a bachelor's of arts degree in English from Mount St. Mary University and received her MFA degree in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers Workshop and has recently completed a collection of short stories entitled The Religion of Slaves. She is now working on her memoir. And I welcome Linda has been with us before and I will put some links in the chat about her previous event. And welcome, Linda, unmute yourself. Can you hear me now? We got you. Hello and thank you so much, Anissa and the San Francisco Public Library for allowing me to share some of the joys and memories of San Francisco's African American musicians. This project became a small started out as very small and has grown so quickly that I've already discussed the possibility to come back and do part two. So this is part one today. And I just want to begin by thanking everyone for coming. It's a wonderful Sunday afternoon. I know they're having concerts at Stern Grove, but you elected to be here. And so I appreciate you. Having a little bit of a challenge here. There we are. The name of this presentation is called There's Something About the Water. And it's been inspired by my fascination with the water being born and raised right here in San Francisco. I always knew that it had some sort of an effect upon me, even as a child. And then I came along this wonderful book by Wallace J. Nichols called Blue Mind, and it describes how water makes us happier, more connected and how it makes us better at what we do. And I think that that is especially so for people in the creative arts. One of the things about the artists that I'm going to be presenting today is that they are the progeny of African Americans who came from the south to the west, escaping Jim Crow. And this is the second part of the second. This is the part of the second great migration. And so it began like right before at the brink of World War Two and continued on into the 1970s. And so a lot of the people that you see here today, they were perhaps born in the south, but came here as toddlers and young children. And so they are true San Franciscans worlds away from the lives that their parents grew up with. I want to describe how Black Music Month came about. This is Diana Williams and at the time her husband, Kenneth Gamble. Now, Kenny Gamble is a music and songwriting master. He is responsible and part of the team of Gamble and Huff that created the Philadelphia sound, what we call the Philly sound. His former wife, Diana Williams, was a journalist and a radio personality and a musician in her own right. They came up with the idea of a Black Music Appreciation Month because Kenny Gamble in the 1970s went to Nashville, Tennessee. And everywhere he went, he saw little monuments and some way to pay homage to the country music artist who were a part of building the music, the country music sound out of Nashville, Tennessee. And Kenny thought that the same thing should be done for African American music. And he and his wife set about doing that in the 1970s. And it finally came into fruition in 1979. The bill to Institute Black Music Month was originally signed by Jimmy Carter in 1979. However, there was some sort of a glitch and a neglect in signing a proclamation. And that didn't get signed until the year 2000. And so in the first term of his presidency, President Barack Obama signed a new proclamation and renamed the historic month African American Music Appreciation Month. So it just didn't come out of somebody pulling an idea out of the wind. It took time. It took a lot of writing. And it took a lot of support by people in the industry, people that you know and people that you do not. Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder and even Bob Marley. And there's one name that I'd like you to remember. And that is Clarence Avant, A-V-A-N-T. There is a wonderful, wonderful documentary on Netflix about Clarence Avant, and it is called The Godfather, the Black Godfather. That's exactly what it's called. And he was instrumental in really getting Gamble and Williams to the higher levels, to the presidential level, where they could actually get this, make this a done deal. And so now we begin. And I have to tell you the reason that this is cut in half is this presentation is cut in half is because when I wanted to include so many people and I wanted to do it chronologically so that we could see the evolution of music. And so that was my attempt. And so I'm giving you the best that I've got for right now. Don't be mad at me. If I left somebody that you love out of it, I'm mad at myself. But come back for part two, I promise you they will be in there. This is a San Francisco homeboy, John Royce Mathis, born in Gilmore, Texas, in 1935. His family moved to San Francisco in around 1937, and he grew up in the Richmond District on 32nd Avenue. You know, his father was in music and his father was actually a retired Vodvillian. And so he always encouraged Johnny his, you know, to pursue his interest in music. And he even bought him an upright piano for twenty five dollars. And that's how Johnny began to play. And when he was a young kid, he'd go around just local things, you know, in school events and churches and sing. And he built quite a name for himself before he was even a high school graduate. Johnny was a very industrious young man and he actually worked out a deal with his first vocal coach to get lessons and he would do chores around her house for her. Her name was Miss Cox, and he was with her for six years. And we can all see that she did him a lot of good. And he's thanked her many times in different speeches. Johnny is a graduate of George Washington High School. You know, the nemesis to my alma mater, Lincoln High, but he was a stellar athlete there and he was still singing around the city. And he graduated in 1954 and went to San Francisco State with the intention of becoming an English teacher and a P.E. teacher. Johnny was actually quite an athlete. And in 1956, he was invited to try out for the US Olympic team. They were going to be going to Melbourne. And Johnny at the same simultaneously, he was heard at a nightclub by a representative from Columbia Records and he gave Johnny a contract at the age of 19. Johnny Mathis had his first recording deal. Johnny had a very interesting life and he lived very privately. But in 1982, when he was doing an interview with Us Magazine, he thought he was off the record and inadvertently made a statement that changed his life. All he said was homosexuality is a way of life and I've grown accustomed to it. What did he say that for? I mean, people went crazy. He got death threats and probably lost some gigs at the time. Well, this is 1982, but it was really, really bad for him. And he never really spoke on it again until like 2017. He did do another interview with Larry King. But this is an interview that he did with CBS News Sunday morning. And he says, and I do quote, I come from San Francisco. It's not unusual to be gay in San Francisco. I've had some girlfriends, some boyfriends, just like most people. But I never got married, for instance. I knew that I was gay. So one thing we can give Johnny Johnny Mathis credit for is not living on the down low. He lived a very quiet, private life. But he was always true to himself and true to others about who he was. And I love him for that. Our next San Francisco native daughter is Carol Channing. And you might be surprised to see Carol Channing there amongst African Americans. But yes, Carol Channing is a biracial woman, African American on her father's side and German on her mother's side. Carol was born in Seattle in 1921. And as a toddler, her family moved to San Francisco in 1923. So she was born in the Roaring 20s. And believe me, when I tell you, if you are not familiar with Carol Channing, look her up this sister, Roard. She went to Aptis High, Aptis Junior High School, and she's a graduate from Lowell, like one of the presenters in the book for the summer series. Carol graduated from Lowell at the age of 16 and was accepted into Bennington College in Vermont. And but before she left, her mother told her something that she'd always kept from her. And Carol writes about it in her autobiography, Just Lucky, I guess. Her mother told her that she was black and told her of the origins of her family. Her father was a very, very light-skinned African American man. And his mother, a black woman who worked as a domestic in Augusta, Georgia, decided that her children would have a better chance if she could separate from the separate them from the consciousness of Jim Crow culture in the South, where people were more likely to recognize his full features. And so she sent her children to Providence, Rhode Island. And so that's how Carol's father ended up living the life of a white man and separating from his African American roots. Another. Oh, wait a minute. I need to go back and tell you one thing about Carol before I go on. Carol Channing went on to win an Emmy, a Tony, a Golden Globe and a Grammy. And she lived to be, I think, like 98 years old and just died in 2019. So and she died in Southern California. But again, she makes the case for me that there is something about the water here in the San Francisco Bay Area. David Diggs, you might recognize him. He is a Broadway actor and received a Tony Award for his performance in Hamilton. David is Jewish by his mother and African African American by his father. And he is a graduate of Berkeley High School, and he went to Brown and graduated with a degree in theater arts. If you're looking for something really interesting and you want to see where he fuses his Jewish and his African American cultures, go on YouTube and look up a puppy for Hanukkah. It is a little hip hop Jewish African American rap video. And it is so adorable. It's about a little boy who waits eight days for the puppy that he's hoping for for Hanukkah. David Diggs received a Tony Award in 2016 for his performance in Hamilton, and he actually played two roles in Hamilton. And he also won a Grammy for the musical performance of Hamilton in the same year of 2016. Now I want to take a moment and introduce you to a couple of the gospel dynasties that were born right here in San Francisco and Oakland Bay Area. Now, the interesting thing about it is that these artists are all most collectively from the Church of God in Christ, which is called Kojik, C-O-G-I-C, Church of God in Christ. And you will meet other artists today that are also part of that church. And it's very interesting, the kind of music they produced once they got out at a church. This is Edwin Hawkins, and he was born in Oakland, California. He has been a mainstay in the gospel music industry for over 50 years. He is credited for one of the biggest gospel hits in world history. Oh, happy day. Now, a lot of people think that Edwin Hawkins wrote that song. He did not. Oh, happy day was actually written by Philip Dodridge in the 1700s. That's right, this song was written in the 1800s. What Edwin Hawkins did was he did a new arrangement for the song, and it has never been the same. If you're familiar with it, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not, wait till we're done. Go to YouTube and get some spirit in you on this Sunday morning. Edwin Hawkins went on to sell more than 7 million copies of the recording of Oh, Happy Day, which means it is a mainstay throughout the world religious communities, well, Christian communities anyway. This is Edwin's brother, Bishop Walter Hawkins. And I love Walter Hawkins not just because of his music, but because he founded a ministry, the Love Center in Oakland, California. And when it wasn't even Vogue or accepted, he opened his church to the LGBTQ community and and they got musicians and artists and people from all around the Bay Area to show up at the Love Center on Sunday and make a joyful noise. One of the things I have to tell you about the Church of God and Christ is that compared to other churches, particularly those in the African American community, they are the noise makers. Believe me, if noise could beat the devil back down to hell, the Church of God and Christ would do it because they make a loud, joyful noise. And the choir at the Love Center was known for just that. And they actually had a number one hit back in the 90s. That stayed on the gospel billboard charts for 33 weeks. This is Tremaine Davis Hawkins. She was once the wife of Bishop Walter Hawkins. Tremaine was born here in San Francisco, and she was part of a music group called The Heavenly Tones, when she was a teenager still in high school. One of the members of that group was a girl named Vett Stone. And Vett's brother, Sly, had just started his own band. And the girls, Tremaine, Vett, and the others of The Heavenly Tones were signed to sing background music for Sly and the Family Stone. Tremaine did some work with them, but she ultimately left that because her heart was with gospel. And that's where it remained. And she won her first Grammy Award for Gospel recording with her husband in 1981. Now, the second dynasty of gospel music from the San Francisco Bay Area is the Crouch family. And this is Andre Crouch, born right here in San Francisco. Andre has worked with his career spent over 45 years, and he worked with every major artist from Elvis and Little Richard to Michael Jackson and Madonna. As a matter of fact, if you're familiar with Michael's recording of Man in the Mirror and the gospel phrases throughout, that was Andre Crouch and his singers backing up Michael and Man in the Mirror. Andre also received an Oscar nomination for musical arrangements he did for the film, The Color Purple. One of the things that surprised me, I mean, I learned, I learned things as I go along. I sang in many church choirs over the year. And one of the main songs that used to just really get everybody going was the blood will never lose its power. I did not know somehow that that was written by Andre Crouch until I did until I started working on this presentation. And the funny thing about it is that at that time, this song was so powerful, it used to make me want to fly off of the power and understand if you love gospel music, if you love sacred music, go and try and find this one on Spotify or YouTube or somewhere. Believe me, it's out there and it will move you. OK, Andre is a recipient of seven Grammy Awards and he's been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and he's only one of three gospel artists to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is really saying something because, you know, Hollywood ain't no gospel town. This is Andre's sister, his twin sister, Sandra Crouch, which means she had to be born in San Francisco, too. So Sandra sang along, sang along with her brother and she also co-pastored a church with him after their father died. She won a Grammy as the best soul gospel performance female in 1984. And again, a beautiful, beautiful voice. Now we go to rhythm and blues, funk and soul. And I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm feeling the funk just looking at the words. But I had decided that I needed to start in. I didn't know where to put this person because they were just such a phenomenon and crossed over in so many genres. So before Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and before RuPaul's Drag Race, in the days of yester, there was a queen who reigned supreme and her name was Sylvester. Sylvester James, the baddest girl, the baddest boy to touch the shores of San Francisco Bay. Originally from Los Angeles, Sylvester always identified as gay or was identified as gay and bullied. Again, another member of the Church of God in Christ. Sylvester couldn't find acceptance for his life and the way he loved cross-dress. And believe me, he was beautiful as a man. She was beautiful as a woman. So Sylvester came to San Francisco where he could be free and really come out. Sylvester had several hits and several iterations of his group, but two of his biggest hits are You Make Me Feel Mighty Reel. That one just gives me the shivers and dance disco heat. But you have to hear Mighty Reel. Again, I urge you, go check Sylvester out on YouTube. You will not be sorry if you like to dance, if you like to whoop and holler. All that he got from the Church of God in Christ, when he put it into rhythm and funk, it smoked. It smoked. She was really something. Sylvester, one of the iterations was Sylvester and his backup seniors, Martha Wash and Isor Armstead, and they were known as two tons of fun. I mean, that's a little politically incorrect for this day, but they loved it. They embraced it. They were beautiful, big black women and they could sing. Martha was also a native San Franciscan and and a high school graduate here in San Francisco. Isora, ironically, is originally from Houston, Texas, which is where a lot of my family is from and a lot of people from San Francisco with southern roots, many from Houston. Martha and Isora eventually left Sylvester's group and they had and became the weather girls. They went from being two tons of fun to being the weather girls and they blessed the children with an anthem and what remains to be the biggest hit of their career, its main, its reigning men, which was released in 1983. And I know I don't have to remind you about that song. Everybody knows that song. All the boys, all the girls and all the children, and it is a winner. Sylvester also before he got with Isora and Martha, he was with he had his own band, the Hot Band. So Sylvester was this beautiful drag queen with a group of funky white boys and they used to make great music. I like to put a lot of these photographs up because he was so beautiful in any way. And you can see that he was also pointed with our beloved Harvey Milk. If you want to know what Sylvester really meant to the city of San Francisco, you can go to 19th and Castro to the Rainbow Honor Walk, the Rainbow Walk of Honor, where you will find a plaque of Sylvester. And it reads multi gold records, singer and songwriter known as the Queen of Disco and a visionary of queerness, music and race. Yes, that describes Sylvester in a nutshell. And I want to say one little side thing, don't scrounge up your face when I say the word disco disco was rocking. Disco was the first time we got long play records where you could actually dance to one song for half an hour. And believe me when I tell you, if that song was Sylvester, the way he wailed and the way he shouted and the way he growled, you didn't even want it to stop after thirty five minutes. Now we come to another another Sylvester. My boy Sly Stone. Sly was originally from Denton, Texas, but like most of the other artists that you've met and will meet, he also came to San Francisco as a child and grew up playing doing music, playing keyboards and and actually just being in a doo wop band before he actually broke out to what to who we don't him to be today. I like these photographs because these are album covers. And so this first one, Dance to the Music, was their first album. And you can see how they are. They're very sixties. This is the mid sixties. And you can see Larry Graham there right behind Sly Stone. But you see they have their little tight afros or Sly and they're looking very serious, but by the time they blew up, this is how they ended up. They were the true funk masters. And so when people, there's all genres of music, but in black music, there's this one little beautiful, tiny niche called funk, funk, F-U-N-K. And Sly is the orchestrator and the perpetrator and put his finger, his fingerprint on funk. So every time you listen to funk, I don't care if it's confunction, Parliament Funkadelic or print, it came from Sly Stone. He was just that bad. One of the things I want to tell you about Sly Stone, he's got many, many hits, again, look them up. But Sly wrote every single song they ever recorded. And that was hit after hit after hit. Sly has a special place in my heart because when I was growing up, he was a radio DJ on K-S-O-L and then radio K-D-I-A. Now, this is back in the 60s and I'm like a little teenager, a very young teenager. And back then you had to have a radio name. I mean, people called into the radio just like they probably do. They do now, they log in and they go on Instagram, whatever. But back then all we had was telephones with rotary dials, but we still managed to get through. And when tickets to concerts, talk to celebrities and talk to our DJs. My radio name, when I was a little girl, was called Mrs. Soul. And I would call and I would dedicate. Dedicate is the 60s and 70s version of a shout out. This is how you tell someone you love them, you're thinking about them, you want them to hear a song that you've asked the DJ to play. Now, one of the very special things about Sly was that when you called Sly and you told him it was your birthday, he had a keyboard right there in the studio and he would do some jam and version of happy birthday for you or whatever it might be right there on the spot. So, of course, when he formed his band Sly and the Family Stone, everybody in this city was already behind him and loving him. And we made no mistake, they really brought the funk. During that era, it was also important for a lot of artists to do some sort of consciousness raising song, something that made someone think. And for me, that song is stand, stand in the end. You'll still be you one that's done all the things you set out to do. And this is 1969 and he's telling you man up, woman up, put it on and go do what you have to do, stand for the things you know are right. It's the truth that the truth makes them so uptight. Again, we see that even today. People can't handle the truth like the election. Stand for the things you know are real. You have youth to compete and there is no deal. Stand is a song that tells us about standing up without compromise. If you've never hear anything else by Sly and the Family Stone, I urge you to go listen to this song. It can actually it's a torch bearing song and it'll make you want to stand up and keep and keep up the good fight. Now we come to my girls, the pointer sisters, Ruth, Anita, Bonnie and June. They are all Oakland natives and they were the original funky divas. I know some people say in vogue, but trust me, the pointer sisters were the original funky divas. One of the things about the pointer sisters is that, again, Church of God and Christ, they had the best harmony and they actually emerged onto the scene doing a lot of forties pieces. Boogie Boogie Bugle Boy song called Jada and they also dressed the part. They had women all over the Bay Area dressing in 1940 suits, just raiding goodwill stores and secondhand shops for hats and shoes and purses. And we did the thing because of them. They went on to stellar success and were showed up in movies and television shows. And one iconic film that you will find the pointer sisters in is Car Wash with Richard Pryor and George Carlin and Franklin Ajai and Ivan Dixon and so many others. Car Wash is a cult classic and just as just as much a cult classic as Fridays or or any other film that people just can't let go of. So but the pointer sisters, they were also on the Carol Burnett show. They sang on the soundtrack for Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop. And. They still perform today of the remaining sisters and their daughters. Now, in the in the name of funk, Tower of Power. Don't you just love that picture of the bridge? I mean, we were so proud of that when this album first came out. And now we can be especially proud of it because the bridge doesn't look like that anymore, you know, and they again with the DNA of Sly Stone, they were the funkiest band around. They had a lead singer by the name of Lenny Williams, who is still around San Francisco and the world doing gigs everywhere. But Lenny is a Renaissance man who was also a probation officer in the San Francisco Department of Probation. But if you love good music, if you love good funk, it's Lenny Williams and Tower of Power. Now, in the name of funk, again, we have confunction. This group was out of the Leo and they hit the scene with hit after hit after hit and they never let up. I put a list of some of their top 10 hits here. Fun loves train and one of my favorites miss got the body for the obvious reasons. OK, now I decided that this would be a good place to stop because I know that we're doing Q&A and there's so much more. And I, again, doing this chronologically, I wanted to leave enough time for some discussion if anyone is ready. There's lots of info in the chat going on. Some people love those images that you pulled up, Linda. Don't see any questions at this moment. I wanted to just say that all of these resources, I knew you were going to come with all of those great resources and we have so much of this music and books and films on all of the people you mentioned. So I threw a bunch of those links in there. But yes, if anyone would like to raise their hand or ask a question and you too, you as well. I totally remember looking at my mom's slide in the family stone record albums covers and going through them. Yes, yes, they did some really fantastic cover art. As a matter of fact, Album Cover Art was a big deal back in the day. And you could actually go to record stores and buy frames that were fit and made suitable for Album. So all you had to do, slide your album in it and hang it on the wall. Lots of love coming in from YouTube. I see from the chat. I didn't realize Confunction was from Valeo. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. You know, and that was the great thing about growing up in San Francisco because when Larry Graham actually did a concert at Lincoln High School, you could find different groups doing impromptu concerts in the park and some were set up so you find Sly out there, Santana. I mean, this was a great music hub. And that's one of the things that I want to say about this presentation, too. I'm specifically doing African American music for this month. But there's great music all over San Francisco. I mean, they're wonderful things of the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane. We used to go to the Jefferson Airplane House over on Fulton Avenue near Willard North and just kind of hang out and want and hope that we could see somebody. But I did see on hate one time when I was a kid, I cut school with Jeanette Amaya and we were on Haidt Street and I wasn't prone to this. The first and only time I ever cut school. I think I was probably like in the seventh grade and we were on Haidt Street and we saw Janice Joplin, so it was worth it. That is so fun. Awesome. So we do know we have one question that ask if you know of any music museums that specialize in black music specifically, you know, we know there's the rock and roll all the name and. Yes, yes, there are. There is a museum in Stax Records. Where's Stax Records? Is that. I want to say Tennessee, but I could be wrong. There is an African American Museum. Excuse me, Tennessee's correct. Yes, yes, yes. So there is a museum of African American and it's probably small, but the greatest museum, if you wanted to find out about a lot of African American music as part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. It is the African American Museum of History and Culture and it has several floors and one floor is completely dedicated to music. I'm aware of this because some of my father's work. My father was a San Francisco photographer, a jazz photographer, Steve Jackson. I did a presentation last year and, you know, using some of his work and his work is also in that museum, but I would suggest if you want to find out about any major players and even some of the minor ones in African American music from the beginning of black people on American shores up to the 21st century, that would be the place I would suggest that you go. It's wonderful. I'm putting your dad's link here into the chat. So amazing, Linda. So tell us what was your favorite record store back in your day? Back in the. Records at Columbus and Bay. And Tower Records was so cool because they stayed open until midnight. And you go in there and there's music playing and you'd run into celebrities and you'd run into beautiful drag queens and you'd run into, you know, the 20 people coming down to buy some music before they go back to Nob Hill. Or it was just a wonderful, wonderful place to be. It was a happening and it was right up the street from Bimbos 365. And it was right up the street from where beach Babylon beach blanket Babylon played. So, I mean, it was a really, really thriving area. North Beach, it's still nice, but not like back in the day. Yes, it's true. When I first moved to San Francisco, that Tower Records was still open for years, but then it closed down. Yeah, yeah, I hate to see the record stores leave. Yeah, so SFPL has a whole LP collection. So you can check out vinyl from from the library now. And that's that five different locations or you just place it on hold and go pick up at your. Oh, great, great. You know, I have another shout out or a dedication because there was another record store. There was a neighborhood record store over in Bayview on Third Street called Caesar's record store. And it was a great place to go. You go in there and you would get a forty five for about 50 cents. If you don't know what forty five is, it's a vinyl record. It's a little small one. I know some people don't know, but OK, I've been around. And there was always great music playing there. And sometimes he'd have some artists come in, they come in to play. And so, again, you'd have people like the Whispers, which the Whispers also Bay Area group and so many others. And you'd see them on the streets. But I also was a little fortunate in that my father was a photographer. And so sometimes I got to go and meet some of these people in person. So that was always a gasp. I was so young, much of the time I was afraid to take photographs with those people. I could just kick myself now, but I can just be happy and thankful that I had the experience of meeting them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Any questions out there, friends? Don't be shy. A terrific presentation, loving all the memories and the appreciation. Oh, thank you so much. Is there still an original record store still in the Bay Stacks Records Museum? You know what, I don't know about that. I'm going to have to check that myself. We have a couple left, but not like you used to. No, no, no. But vinyl is making a comeback. It's just not being distributed through record stores anymore. But vinyl is definitely made a comeback. It seems like the only one left is Amoeba almost, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a different experience. Yeah. I mean, nice. I mean, very little in Amoeba is brand new. But I mean, this is when you went in and had brand use kind of flip through the records yourself and and sometimes you'd buy it simply because of the art on the cover, you know, was so beautiful. And one of the best cover art musicians was Santana. I mean, if you just pull up the cover art of Santana's albums, you would be amazed and believe me, you would want it on your walls. Are you saying something I can't hear you? I am going to put the link into your presentation that you did with us before, which was San Francisco in black and white in 1951 to 1980, which was really great. I encourage you all to check that out on YouTube. Oh, thank you. Yes, it really addresses the great migration and how all of the people you've seen today got here and why they came, why their families came here. I really had a lot of fun doing that. And I was able to use a significant portion of my father's photographs. And so I hope that that will be a treat and you can enjoy that as well. I'd like to know about, you know, your other writing that you're doing now. And where do you see that going? Do you are you looking to get it published and? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, I've done some I've been published, but I'm working on a memoir and I have to tell you memoir is challenging because you have to relive some things and some things are not always, you know, pleasant, but it is part of the process. And so I have a great writing buddy and, you know, and so I'm working with her and getting it done. But then I have a wonderful collection of short stories, which are about the church and they're called The Religion of Slaves. And those are the ones that I'm trying to get published in a collection. But they're really, really wonderful stories, if I do say so myself. And they're about church people. And one of the messages that I'm trying to convey through all of that is that church people are just people just like anyone else, you know, with flaws and warts and and halos and all the things that everyone else has. I would love for you to come back and do an author talk when that when you get, even when you don't get it published, you know, you can come to you always have a spot with us, Linda. Oh, thank you so much. You know, I have a couple of really fun, short stories that I'd like to share. And I've been I do readings around the city. And I actually participated in Litquake when we had a Litquake, you know, before the pandemic and everything. And so the story was really well received there. And I have so many more. And it's a funny thing about these stories. It was a collection that I finished in graduate school, but the collection wouldn't let go of me. And so since I did the collection in graduate school, I've written about four more stories because these people and these situations just won't let go. And while I don't have stories that are what I would what some people would call sequels, I have stories where I revisit the same characters. And I just call them companion stories. That sounds lovely. Yes, well, we'll have to invite you back for sure. And we have a comment from Judith. Do you remember when you worked together at the Exploratorium a long time ago? Linda Judith Wing, Judy Wing. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know what? I don't remember your face, but I remember that name. Oh, my God. And I love working at the Exploratorium. Do you? OK, OK, let me calm down. I worked at the Exploratorium for several semesters when I was in high school and I had the best job in the world. Besides being a docent, I have the job of dissecting pigs' eyeballs. Yes, yes. And it was such a gas and I learned that. And listen, I'm saying such a gas because I've been living in the 50s in the 60s, that's an old term, but I've been loving it. You know, I got into the subject and the subject got into me. But working at the Exploratorium, they used to give me and this is when it was at the Palace of Fine Arts, I would get a bucket of pigs' eyeballs. They used to go to one of the slaughter houses off of Third Street and get a big bucket of pigs' eyeballs. And so I had eyeballs all day long that I could dissect. And the interesting thing about it was that I mean, and it was a pigs' eyeball because they say it is closest to a human being's eyeball. So I imagine that they use them in anatomy classes and medical school and that sort of thing, particularly for automotry and such. And it was so great because doctors and scientists would come in while I was doing my presentation and they would give me more information. And I learned more about a pigs' eyeball than I ever thought I ever wanted to know. But it was a learning experience and I loved it. I just absolutely loved it. Judy Wang. Judy said you were braver than her. That is so fascinating, Linda. You're you have such a fascinating San Francisco history and I am so happy that we have connected and that we get to continue bringing you to our library and sharing your stories with us. And I don't see any more questions and there's just lots of love going on on YouTube as well. Did I miss? No, you did not miss the link. I was still looking for it. Let's see if I can find that really quickly. Well, also. Not looking like I'm searching for something. Linda's father's work is also in the book that I just put in, which is Harlem of the West featured in there. But those photos are also so stunning. Yeah. Well, friends, I do want to put this one more time. And wow, Linda gave us just an enormous amount of links. All of this stuff is available at your library. All of those things that she mentioned. And we we took notes as you were going, Linda. So we hopefully caught everything and I will include that link to the YouTube. I'll have to look it up a little more thorough to Linda's previous presentation, which was San Francisco in black and white. And it was gorgeous. It was really gorgeous. Thank you. Thank you so much. And one of the things that I'd like to say, if there are any younger people out there who are not familiar with a lot of this music and they say, oh, I wasn't there. You don't have to be there to know history. You just have to learn your history. Not being born at a particular time is no excuse for not being up on your history. And you don't have to know the history of the world, but you should know at least the history of your community and the people that you admire. And that's there. So being young is no excuse. Crack open those history books or go online and and learn something about who you are through who we are and where we all come from and how we got here together. It's very, very important. And trust me, when you know your history, when you know about who you are and your surroundings, you will have a deeper and a greater sense of self. I promise you true, true, true. And what an amazing history we have here in San Francisco. We all have an amazing history. So many of us just don't know it. That's true. I have so many times, I think, back to we have an author, Alvin Orloff, who is a very queer guy who wrote his own memoir called Disasterama. But he said everyone should be mandatory to write their own memoir. So I always think about that and you just reminded me of that. So. Oh, yeah, that's great advice. But I mean, that's like creating a whole boom for this psychiatric industry. Writing memoir is not easy. You got to go in. I mean, first and then, you know, put on some hip waders and go in because memoir is tough, but I do agree with Orloff. It is very important, even if it's just for your family record. True, true. All right, friends, thank you for joining us on this Sunday. I know there's so much going on today. I think the sun is about to peek out so we can take our arms off and head out into our San Francisco summer. And thank you so very much. I thank everyone for joining me and I hope to see you again. And I will have more for you in part two and you're going to love it. I've got people that you're thinking about and I thought about them too. And we'll get to them next time. Thank you so much.