The First Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair Held in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO-The five year anniversary of the death of social activist, historian, playwright, and author Howard Zinn is coming up in January.  Those who wanted to honor his work organized the First Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair in San Francisco that took place this weekend.

The event included a People’s Plenary–titled A Celebration of the Ways we Find Hope in Difficult Times.

Here the People’s Plenary Award was given to the Marcus Bookstore community. Until their eviction this year, Marcus Books was the longest-open Black bookstore in the United States. The campaign to save it brought international attention to the displacement crisis in San Francisco as well as Black out-migration according to organizers.

Well one plenary was titled Communications from Below:  The People’s History of Radical and Grassroots Media.  Panelists talked about the contributions and histories of media activism that built computer networks, guerilla television, pirate radio stations, radical film collectives, soapbox orations traditions, and alternative journalism.  One panelist, Jesse Drew is the author of Social History of Contemporary Dramatic Media and he talked to KGNUs Elane Spivak about the history of social media from his perspective:

Japanese Americans During the Internment was another panel discussion.  The presentation utilized a slide presentation that detailed the underdocumented World War II era efforts of non-Japanese Americans who acted in solidarity with Japanese Americans during forced incarceration.  Shizue Seigel , author of In Good Conscience: Supporting Japanese Americans During the Internment.  KGNU has brought you annual coverage of the pilgrimage at Colorado’s own World War II Japanese American concentration camp called AMACHE located in Granada in Southeastern Colorado.  In this next interview Seigal talks to KGNU’s Elane Spivak about that era here in Colorado: