Wanda's Picks

Today we will be speaking to Pierre LaBoissiere about Haiti. We will also have on the show Kofi Taharka, Houston Black United Front, and Charles "Boko" Freeman, Houston native and one of the founders of the BPP chapter there. The two men will speak about a commemorative program honoring Carl Bernard Hampton, whom Boko says, was "one of Black America's most articulate, courageous and heroic, young leaders was ruthlessly slain by the Houston Police Department's Central Intelligence Division (CID), July 26, 1970. At the age of 21, Carl was a tireless organizer who worked day and night to establish People's Party II[1], a Black revolutionary group modeled after the Black Panther Party (BPP). On Sunday, July 26, 2009 two activities will be held to commemorate the life and death of Carl Bernard Hampton. The Gravesite Remembrance will take place at 3:00pm at Golden Gate Cemetery 8400 Hirsch Road Houston , Texas . The Community Memorial will kick off at 5:00pm at 3212 Dowling Street Houston , Texas next to the PABA. The memorial will include a tour of the actual spot were Carl was gunned down by Houston police. The memorial on Dowling Street will also feature: a limited free food giveaway, survival program speakers, poets and edutainment. We will then speak to Jacques Ibula, Congolese artist who has a concert:"Song Writer Sundays Unplugged," July 19, 8-10 at at Yoshi's in San Francisco. We will conclude with Donald Harrison, who will be at Stanford Jazz with his latest band, Saturday, July 18. Visit www.donaldharrison.com

Jeff Chambers is hosting a tribute concert in honor of his mentor, Buddy Montgomery. Terrence Brewer's latest CD, "Groovin' Wes: A Musical Expression of Admiration for Wes Montgomery," presents a perfect opportunity to get the two men in the studio together to talk about two other gifted and talented brothers. If you missed Brewer's awesome CD release party this Spring, the CD is available on his website. However, you don't want to miss Chambers Wednesday, July 22, 8 PM at Yoshi's in San Francisco. Visit www.jeffchambers.com.

Today we'll be speaking about Restorative Justice and African-centered theories associated with this movement in particular. Our first guest is: Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, who is a Restorative Justice Researcher/Consultant. She is currently conducting a national listening project, The Baobab Tree Listening Project. The purpose of this qualitative study to survey the perspective of African American Restorative Justice practitioners on Restorative Justice as a field and how it's approaches can be applied in African American communities. She is also a consultant with defense teams of capital murder cases as a Victim Outreach Specialist as a liaison between the surviving family members and the defense team. We have a follow-up conversation and interview with co-writer, producer and actor, Darien Sills-Evans, whose film, Rivers Wash Over Me, screens at Outfest in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 11 at 1:30 p.m. Visit http://www.outfest.org/fest2009/ This interview is followed by a conversation with Tamara Perkins, director of film, "The Trust: Learning Trust, Finding Hope." Dr. Garry Mendez, Jr., author, public scholar, and community activist who has been addressing issues confronting African Americans, families and communities using culture and value-based leadership for over 40 years, and is the Executive Director & Founder of The National Trust, joins Tamara in the studio. There is a BBQ/Concert Fundraising event for the film project, Saturday, July 11, from 1 PM to 7 PM at The Muse: @ 6525 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland. Visit www.trustcommunity.org. We close the show with an interview with Jeff Duvall, promoter and coordinator for the 25th Annual Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo and Stephanie Haynes, participant, and champion cowgirl. BPIR is also this weekend, July 11-12, 2:30 p.m., in Hayward, (visit http://www.billpickettrodeo.com/) Arrive early!

We're talking SF8 this morning. Monday, July 6, at the preliminary hearings the charges were dropped against all the men except Francisco Torres, whose hearing date is August 10, 2009 at 850 Bryant. We are speaking to his former co-defendants: Hank Jones, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown and Harold Taylor, this morning for the closing hour of the show and Charles Bourdon, Cisco's San Francisco-based attorney.

Today we will open the show with a conversation with Richard Brown and Ray Boudreaux, both members of the San Francisco 8. Also joining us this first hour is Stuart Hanlon, attorney for Herman Bell, who took a plea bargain for a lesser charge in the case against the SF8 Monday, June 29. Preliminary hearings begin Monday, July 6. At 8 AM there is a protest and call to drop the charges; the hearings begin at 9 AM--all at 850 Bryant Street @ 7th, in San Francisco. Raymond Nat Turner, artistic director and founder of UpSurge, Jazz Poetry Ensemble will talk about the 3rd Annual Alternative July 4th event at the Oakland Public Conservatory, July 3, beginning at 6 p.m. Michael Lange is a special guest at the event where he will share excerpts of Frederick Douglass's famous speech, "What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Director's Picks Rebroadcast.

Frameline 33 Part 2: Today's show features director Faith Trimel's "Family" screening June 24 and June 26; also featured is director John Young. His "Rivers Wash Over Me" screens June 24. Also featured is director Tim Daniels and producer Burton Rorie's "Standing N Truth". Unfortunately, this film already screened, June 21. Visit www.standntruth.com

Prior to speaking to Mavis Staples last week, I hadn't realized how revolutionary and tied to the Movement for Peace and Justice, Papa Staples and the Staple Singers, Miss Mavis, the youngest, were. She shared stories of her father's meeting with Dr. MLK Jr. and songs he wrote for the young leader and minister during that turbulent time in America as he and his children (the Staple Singers) were arrested and mistreated along with everyone else. Their resistance to injustice continued through the Vietnam War and this legacy is seen in benefit performances and compilations Ms. Staples has participated in as a solo artist for the past 30-40 years. She spoke of visiting her grandmother in Mississippi where people's hand clapping and foot stomping made the floor boards sing in the hills where they had church. Her latest recording, taped live in Chicago last June, but released the day of Obama's victory, November 4, 2008, "Mavis Staples Live: Hope at the Hideout" (ANTI-/Epitaph). Ms. Staples said the CD marks the end of a musical period for her, thought the songs of the Movement and those reflective of the struggles of black people for human rights would never grow old, she was ready to sing happy songs. Well hot dog! is all I can say. It's a short but lively conversation and you can see Miss Staples in concert this weekend, Sunday, June 28, 2009, at The Kate Wolf Memorial Festival in Laytonville, CA. Visit http://www.katewolf.com/festival/ The line-up is impressive: Friday Main Stage * Joel Rafael * Rosalie Sorrels & Ramblin' Jack Elliott * Chris Smither * Ruthie Foster Band * Blind Boys of Alabama Saturday Main Stage * Rita Hosking & Cousin Jack * Sherry Austin Band (with a Kate Wolf song set) * Riders in the Sky * Shawn Colvin * Railroad Earth * Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women * Patty Griffin Sunday Main Stage * Po' Girl * Girlyman *

Today we are featuring interviews with directors: Kortney Ryan Ziegler: "Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen," and Florencia Manovil: "Fiona's Script." Both screen this evening, Monday, June 22 in San Francisco. Ziegler's at the Roxie at 7 PM and Manovil's at 7 PM also at the Roxie. Visit www.frameline.org

Art and Power opened this weekend at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Curator, Constantine Petridis's exhibition looks at the linguistic and aesthetic and cultural linkages between the four distinct African civilizations stemming from Bantu origins: Luba, Songye, Chokwe, and Luluwa. In the exhibit featuring rare work from throughout the country and the world he proposes that the connection between art and spirit are often invisible, that there is no separation, that the power inherent in the nkisi or bearer of potions used to invoke or call the spirit into being to help or assist the community or person is more the rule rather than the exception.

These 59 sculptures from the Central African Savanna show us images of the people who lived then, who centuries later, despite colonial enslavement, reflect us now in the dress, the perception of beauty and in the powerful spirit these art pieces, even robbed or emptied of their potions, still possess.

Also joining us this morning is Muisi-kongo Malonga, Artistic Director of Fua Dia Congo, which has a new work premiering the final week, June 27-28 at the Ethnic Dance Festival at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The dance which comes from Central Africa, the place where Dr.Petridis did field study for six months, and where many of these pieces originate, is in the news a lot for its decades long battle with international exploitation, bloodshed, rape as a weapon of war, and displacement of people trying to escape the terror. Kongo-Kintourari links, Muisi-kongo says, the ancient spelling of Kongo and the word kintouri, a Kikongo word meaning "unity." The dance is a symbolic call for unity in the region.

Whether it is Muisi-kongo's work with the all women dance company she founded, Diata Diata, "KOngo Odysssey," at the company's 25th Anniversary Concert, or the annual Congolese Drum and Dance Camp in July, she always includes this element--unity, unity between Africans and African Americans, unity betwee