Allensworth Braces For Floods; ’70s Band Fanny Reclaims Their Right To Rock

Back in the early 1900s, the town of Allensworth became the first California town founded, financed and governed by Black Americans. The fertile Tulare Lake region should’ve been a utopia for the Black doctors, professors and farmers who settled there.

But historic power dynamics left them, and the Allensworth community today, on the losing side of many water and land use questions. Now, as the Sierra snowpack melts and floods the Tulare Lake Basin, communities like Allensworth are uniquely vulnerable to flooding. Reporter Teresa Cotsirilos visited Allensworth earlier this spring to learn how residents are coping.

Plus, when you think of California rockers from the 1970s, bands like the Eagles or Journey might come to mind. You probably don’t picture an interracial band of women — some of them Filipina-American and queer — from places like Sacramento and Folsom. Fanny was the first all-female rock band to release an album on a major label, breaking ground for women musicians like the Go Gos, the B52s, and Bonnie Rait. In fact, Fanny released five albums by 1974, but today, a lot of people haven’t heard of them.

A new documentary film screening at CAAMFest in San Francisco follows band members nearly 50 years later as they record a reunion album. Sasha Khokha spoke with June Millington, Fanny’s lead guitarist, and film director, Bobbi Jo Hart, about the band’s legacy, the film and why age is just a number.

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