KPFA - East Bay Yesterday

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – October 21, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

A few generations ago, the San Francisco Bay was filthy, smokestacks clogged the air with sooty black clouds, and many local plants and animals were on the verge of extinction. Although our region still faces threats from invasive species, pollution, and climate change, an incredible amount of progress has been made. Explaining his motivation for writing San Francisco Bay Area: An Environmental History (Backcountry Press), an encyclopedic new overview that covers everything from beavers to earthquakes, David Schmidt said “I thought that people would appreciate the Bay Area and all of its beautiful natural areas much more if they knew how hard it was to preserve them.” Listen to the podcast to hear an interview with David Schmidt that delves into Native history, the real-life incident that inspired Hitchcock’s The Birds, our favorite local lookout points, and much more

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – “The Bay caught on fire”: How we recovered from environmental catastrophe appeared first on KPFA.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – October 7, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – September 30, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

In a small, bunker-like laboratory in the East Bay hills, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin created some of the world’s most powerful psychedelic drugs. Astonishingly, he didn’t try to hide his activities. On the contrary, Sasha published instruction manuals on how to make his mind-expanding compounds, and his farm in Lafayette became a mecca for scientists, therapists, artists, and others who were drawn into his world of pharmacological experimentation. Along with his wife, Ann, Sasha was a pioneer who helped lay the groundwork for the therapeutic use and decriminalization of psychoactive drugs that is unfolding today.

Although Sasha and Ann both passed away, their legacy is being carried on at the Shulgin Farm, which continues to be a space for psychedelic research, educational gatherings, and other activities. On May 2, the Shulgin Foundation will be launching “MDMA: From Molecule to Movement” at the Berkeley Alembic, an exhibit tracing the history of Shulgin’s influence in synthesizing and spreading the drug now known widely as “molly.” This episode features interviews with Wendy Tucker, chair of the Shulgin Foundation, Paul Daley, co-founder of the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute, and Shulgin Foundation director Megan Bowers. Get comfortable, because we’re going deep with this one! Listen via Apple, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.

East Bay Yesterday can’t survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. Don’t forget to follow East Bay Yesterday’s Substack newsletter to stay updated on upcoming tours, events, and other local history news.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday Fund Drive Special: “No Casual Experiments” — Inside a Legendary Psychedelics Lab appeared first on KPFA.

In the early 1900s, Oakland’s business leaders believed their city was destined to become “the great metropolis of the West Coast”—a soaring ambition symbolized by a hot-air balloon called the City of Oakland. We explore the balloon’s fate and what it revealed about Oakland’s economic trajectory. Then, author Steve Lawton shares the explosive history of Hercules, the small Contra Costa County town that once produced more dynamite than anywhere else in the world.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – Boomtown: Oakland’s High-Flying Ambitions and the Dynamite History of Hercules appeared first on KPFA.

The Oakland Underground miniseries continues with two stories from the East Bay’s early-2000s DIY scene. First, John Benson recalls transforming an old AC Transit bus into a venue on wheels, picking up passengers and bringing bands, comedians, free food and renegade performances to unexpected locations.

Then, former residents Sabrina Sierra and Ben Valis share stories from Lobot, one of West Oakland’s largest, longest-running and most legendary live-work warehouse spaces, from all-night parties and community events to an unexpected visit from the FBI. Hosted by Liam O’Donoghue.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – Oakland Underground, Part 2: A Party on Wheels and the Legend of Lobot appeared first on KPFA.

Liam O’Donoghue shares excerpts from his miniseries about Canyon, California—a tiny community tucked among the redwoods behind the Oakland Hills. Once a booming logging town with more residents than Oakland, Canyon has a history where fact and urban legend often intertwine.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – Canyon: The Hidden Village Behind the Oakland Hills appeared first on KPFA.

In 1946, a few hundred department store employees, mostly women, walked off the job and started a picket line in downtown Oakland. Within a few weeks, more than 100,000 workers joined them, filling the streets with protesters who danced under holiday wreaths hanging from lampposts. “This seemingly small action turned into the biggest challenge to corporate domination of American workers in the postwar years,” according to Erik Loomis, author of “A History of America in Ten Strikes.”

Despite an unprecedented outpouring of support, the story of those department store workers turned out to be a cautionary tale, rather than a triumph, for workers seeking to unionize. In the backlash that followed the strike, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, legislation that continues to hobble labor organizing to this day.

Featuring interviews with Erik Loomis, labor historian Gifford Hartman, and archival recordings of workers who participated in the 1946 uprising, this episode explores why Oakland was the site of “America’s last great general strike” – and the connections between this 74-year-old conflict and the struggles of today’s “gig economy” workers.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – “It was like a carnival” The betrayal of Oakland’s 1946 General Strike appeared first on KPFA.

This episode features interviews with co-author Rachel Brahinsky, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco, and Diana Negrín da Silva, who contributed many of the book’s East Bay entries and also teaches in the geography department of UC Berkeley. Listen now to hear us discuss Oakland’s long history of dancing during protests, the origins of Contra Costa County’s “fossil fuel corridor” and much more: Apple / SoundCloud / Spotify.

This series explores stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The post East Bay Yesterday – Rachel Brahinsky on “A People’s Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area” [ENCORE] appeared first on KPFA.