Like the rubber stamp recently discovered by Liana Wilcox, producer of the San Francisco Public Press’ podcast “Civic,” when she was helping her mother clear a storage area.

“I was with my mom going through some of her keepsakes and found a stamp that read ‘Lesbian Money.’ My mom told me that she found it in our old church’s basement,” Wilcox said, adding that she feared the rubber stamp had a sinister connotation.

“I immediately thought it was some sort of exclusionary practice, but that didn’t feel right considering the church we went to, the First Congregational Church of San Francisco, called themselves ‘open and affirming,’” she said.

Wilcox mentioned the stamp during one of our staff meetings, and I said “Oh, no that was a way we tried to raise awareness about the LGBT community back in the old days.” 

As a young gay activist and budding journalist in Salt Lake City in the early 1980s, I vaguely remembered stamps like that one. I reached out to a dear friend to see if she remembered lesbian money. 

Becky Moss is a longtime LGBTQ+ community organizer in Salt Lake City. She and I co-hosted the radio show “Concerning Gays and Lesbians” in Utah in the early ’80s. Moss said activists around the U.S. were stamping bills to show the financial power and size of the greater queer community back in the late 1970s. 

“Separatist lesbian communes would stamp all of their bills before coming into town for supplies,” she said. “But I remember it being more widespread than that, it was really a nationwide thing.” 

A number of sources trace the first “Gay$$” and “Lesbian Money” stamps — sometimes marked with a pink triangle — as having originated in San Francisco in the mid 1970s. The pink triangle was used by the Nazis in Germany to identify gay men in concentration camps and was co-opted as the symbol of the early gay movement before the rainbow flag mostly supplanted it. 

Wherever the money stamping started, by 1986 it had drawn the ire of the Reagan Administration. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois issued a cease-and-desist order to lesbian and gay bar owners in Chicago who were stamping all the bills coming through their businesses to the tune of $5 million a year. Government officials said the campaign violated federal law against defacing currency. But the legal action foundered at least in part because it was nearly impossible to determine who was responsible — anyone could stamp bills, anywhere. The Treasury Department also determined that most of the bills were still “fit for circulation.”  

Money stamping campaigns grew quickly to the point that finding some kind of queer stamp on currency was fairly common in the 1980s. It made an impact in an era when LGBTQ+ representation in film, television and the press were rare. 

Campaign Against Discrimination

Money stamping campaigns were also used to counter discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS in the 1980s. One campaign out of Utah unfolded when Moss visited a restaurant in a suburb of Salt Lake City in the late 1980s. 

“My sister, who had AIDS, and I were at a restaurant in Bountiful, Utah,” she said. “After the meal, the staff threw our plates in the garbage.”

The Salt Lake City branch of ACT-UP, the AIDS activist organization, decided to use an “AIDS Money” stamp to fight such blatant discrimination against those perceived to be infected with HIV.

“They all went to the restaurant and bought things like pie or french fries and then paid for them with the stamped money,” Moss said. “The activists made the point that the owner would now have to throw away all the plates used to serve them or stop the practice.” 

“AIDS Money” stamps remained part of the nationwide effort to raise awareness through the 1980s and ’90s. 

Becky’s sister Peggy Moss Tingey died of complications from AIDS in March 1995, just nine months after her young son Chase died from the virus. Both passed away just before the HIV protease drug cocktail was starting to become available. 

Other Stamping Activism

Recent money stamping campaigns included “I grew hemp” stamps, promoting marijuana legalization, placed on $1 bills near George Washington’s portrait. The idea was taken up by groups advocating for the Second Amendment — “gun owners money” — and even campaign finance reform, with the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation organizing “stamp money out of politics” stamps in 2012.

A campaign in 2016 used large stamps to place Harriet Tubman’s face over the $20 bill portrait of Andrew Jackson, after the Trump Administration overruled the Treasury Department’s plan to replace Jackson with Tubman by 2020.

While the LGBTQ+ movement used stamping to great effect, it was by no means the first to spread the word by customizing currency.

Before World War I, British suffragettes stamped pennies with the words, “Votes for Women.” Only a handful of the coins still exist. But just as the U.S. Treasury Department declined to withdraw bills with “Lesbian Money,” the British banking system declined to take the low-value marked pennies out of circulation.  

Without suffragettes breaking the first chain of patriarchal thinking by winning the right to vote, there would have been no LGBTQ+ rights movement. Discrimination against women — sexism — is the basis of hatred of different sexual orientations and gender identities.

Both the British women who had to strike each penny 13 times — engraving their words letter by letter — and those who inked rubber stamps over and over again used their spending power to wear down conspiracies of silence, one tiny message at a time.

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In recent months, I’ve had the chance to delve into the history of movements for racial equity and reparations in the United States, as well as the rich stories of San Francisco’s two historically African American neighborhoods — the Fillmore and Bayview-Hunters Point.

When I set out to do this reporting, I spoke with Shawna Sherman, who manages the African American Center at the San Francisco Public Library, for some reading recommendations. In addition to books, periodicals and documentaries, the library’s collection includes a trove of primary sources. Sherman’s guidance was extremely helpful.

“The purpose of the African American Center is just to support African Americans in the city with resources to help them better their lives and just learn more about their history and things like that,” she said.

Given the upcoming holiday and impending release of the city’s reparations plan, I want to share Sherman’s book recommendations along with other resources I relied on as I reported on the history of San Francisco’s historically Black neighborhoods and the local movement for reparations.

There are many other resources to explore beyond what what we’ve included in this list. We welcome your recommendations in the comments section.

Books: 

• “Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco,” by Douglas Henry Daniels 
• “Our Roots Run Deep: The Black Experience in California, Volumes One and Two,” edited by John William Templeton* 

• “Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900-1954,” by Albert S. Broussard 
• “City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco,” by Chester Hartman 
• “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-first Century,” by William A. Darity 
• “Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History,” by Ana Lucia Araujo 
• “Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era,” by Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts* 

• “Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcom X to Barack Obama,” by James Lance Taylor* 
• “Fillmore Revisited — How Redevelopment Tore Through the Western Addition,” a chapter by Rachel Brahinsky from the anthology ​​“Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978,” edited by Chris Carlsson and Lisa Ruth Elliott*

*Books marked with an asterisk were recommended by people I interviewed or brought to my attention during reporting.

Documentaries: 

• “Take This Hammer (Director’s Cut),” directed by Richard O. Moore

• “Point of Pride: The People’s View of Bayview/Hunters Point,” produced by the Bay Area Video Coalition 
• “They Can’t Take That Away: The Legacy of the Fillmore,” produced by Lubna Takruri and the Bay Area Video Coalition 
• “The Fillmore – Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco,” produced by KQED  
• “Bay View Hunters Point – San Francisco’s Last Black Neighborhood,” produced by Andante Higgins 

Podcasts and Oral Histories: 

• “Planet Fillmore Orbit” by Lance Burton, (listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Tune In) 
• “Why San Francisco’s Fillmore District Is No Longer the ‘Harlem of the West’” by Bianca Taylor and Olivia Allen Price on KQED’s “Bay Curious”
• “Afro-Americans in San Francisco prior to World War II : Oral history Project,” co-sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society 

Publications:

• San Francisco Bay View
• The Sun Reporter
• The Root
• Prism Media

Reports: 

• An interim report by the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans 
• A draft reparations plan by the San Francisco African American Reparations Committee 

City-Sponsored Presentations and Panels: 

• “State of Black San Francisco: Economic Dignity in Booms and Busts,” parts 1, 2 and 3, by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission 
• “Panel: Reparations Now!” by the San Francisco Public Library 
• “Harlem of the West – The Fillmore Jazz Era,” by the San Francisco Public Library  

You can learn more about the history of Black San Franciscans and access other materials by visiting the African American Center on the third floor of the Main Library Branch at 100 Larkin St. or by reviewing the center’s recommended reading lists online.

Public Press reporting on reparations:  

• “SF Reparations Plan Nears Submission, but Funding Not Yet Secure” 
• “Without Dropping Cash Reparations Idea, SF Investigates New Housing Reforms” 

• “Housing Program to Redress Urban Renewal Could Get Boost From SF Reparations Plan” 

Update: Additional items were added a few hours after this page was published.

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Most recently, the radio team has been developing a series about the way family courts handle allegations of abuse. And in a nutshell, what I’ve learned is not good. 

It all began last fall when the “Civic” team thought it would be interesting to interview reporter Viji Sundaram about a series of articles she recently wrote for the Public Press. The “Civic” episode featuring Viji revealed the way family court judges often dismiss a form of domestic abuse called coercive control. 

As part of my research, I looked for victims of abuse who were mistreated in family court. Those are not easy conversations. It’s a tough balance asking people to talk about their most traumatic experiences while being careful not to retraumatize them.

But as soon as I started reaching out, we got a landslide of social media messages, texts and emails from people who were eager to talk about their horrific stories. And they felt that injustices happening in family court are vastly underreported. 

I found out that over the last 10 years, hundreds of children across the country have been killed after family court judges dismissed abuse allegations. In response to this trend, state Sen. Susan Rubio tried to get a bill passed that would expand the California Family Code to include coercive control in family court hearings and criminal trials. That version of the bill failed (another is in the works) and we thought the movement behind it merited a second episode. 

Now we’re about to release our third episode of a four-part series on abuse allegations and family courts. This episode is about the industry built around defending people accused of child abuse. It ramped up about 40 years ago with one man’s pseudo psychological theory called parental alienation syndrome. 

His name was Richard Gardner, and he gained undue credibility as an unpaid, part-time Clinical Professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University, which allowed him to launch his moneymaker: being hired as an expert witness in child custody cases. His online biography says he testified in about 400 cases in 25 states, and repeatedly got away with claiming, without evidence, that vindictive mothers brainwash their kids into lying in 90% of cases where fathers are accused of sexual abuse. 

Gardner’s theory has elicited vigorous pushback and has been denounced by many academic studies going back to the 1990s, when the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry predicted that lawyers would have a field day with this theory. And that’s exactly what happened, despite the professional outcry. 

Gardner’s cottage industry has become a booming business of paid witnesses who claim expertise in parental alienation. And family court judges regularly grant custody to a parent accused of abuse after hearing expert witnesses testify that the other parent brainwashed their child into lying. 

One lawyer who uses Gardner’s theories to defend clients accused of child abuse told me that in all his cases, the court decided the child was lying about being abused. Today, dozens of adults who were accused of lying as kids — and handed over to parents they said were abusing them — say they were telling the truth. I talked to one who is fighting against harmful family court decisions and trying to stop what happened to her from happening to other children.

I’m working with our producer, Liana Wilcox, to finish a “Civic” episode set to air next week about the harm caused by these theories. We’ll let you know when you can find it on our website in an upcoming newsletter. Subscribe to “Civic” from the San Francisco Public Press on your favorite podcast platform to access the episode as soon as it’s available. 

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Viji Sundaram won a health reporting award for three stories from “Coercive Control: Abuse That Leaves No Marks,” a series about expanding the definition of domestic abuse in California and its uneven application in family court.

Madison Alvarado and former Public Press reporter Noah Arroyo won a community journalism award for their reporting on rent debt, public housing conditions, power outages on Treasure Island and tenant organizing rights in San Francisco.

Join us in congratulating Viji, Madison and Noah!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Friday, July 15, 2022 — (San Francisco, CA) – Nonprofit community radio stations KXSF-LP and KSFP-LP are broadcasting again on 102.5 FM from the second level of Sutro Tower in San Francisco. San Francisco Community Radio and the San Francisco Public Press each broadcast 12 hours a day on their shared frequency, which can be heard throughout the city. 

The sister low-power FM stations were temporarily off the air after their transmitter failed on June 5. Broadcasts were restored on July 14 at 10:37 a.m. after extensive repairs. 

“The transmitter is in an outdoor enclosure,” said engineer Bill Ruck, who oversees the transmitter and related equipment on Sutro Tower on behalf of both stations. “When it failed, we recognized that there was corrosion on the power amplifier that was beyond our ability to repair, so we sent the transmitter back to the manufacturer, Nautel. They reported damage to two circuit boards that required complete replacement.” 

KSFP Program Director Mel Baker said he was pleased the stations could relaunch their broadcasts.

“Our two stations provide a service to the community not offered by the large public media outlets that focus on the entire region,” he said. “We give air-time to programs made for and by San Franciscans.” 

Carolyn Keddy, who is a KXSF DJ and chairperson of the San Francisco Community Radio Board of Directors, agreed. 

“San Francisco has so many voices needing to be heard that are excluded from the homogenized commercial radio stations,” she said. “KXSF and KSFP give space to local people who have something to say and something to share.”

Baker said that the stations’ complementary programming serves the community well.

“Our two stations provide a good mix, with KSFP focusing on news and information programs during the morning and evening, while our partners at KXSF offer a wide and varied mix of music, community affairs and entertainment programs by local creators throughout the day and nighttime hours,” he said. 

KXSF and KSFP both stream their own programming around the clock, but share the 102.5 FM signal, handing it off every six hours. KXSF broadcasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., and KSFP airs from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

KSFP: A Project of the San Francisco Public Press

KSFP launched in August 2019. It offers a mix of local news, public affairs and storytelling programs, including the flagship weekly news and public affairs show “Civic.” 

KSFP is the home station for “Out in the Bay,” which serves the LGBTQ community; “News in Context,” which examines media bias; and “Voices of the Community,” which explores how Bay Area nonprofits fulfill their charitable missions. KSFP’s “Open Studio” airs locally produced podcasts, such as “Radio Teco” from El Tecolote newspaper. The station also served as the launchpad for two radio play series created by theater companies Word for Word and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which produced audio versions of their shows during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

San Francisco Community Radio’s KXSF

KXSF launched online in January 2011 and began broadcasting on 102.5 FM in September 2018. KXSF consists of a 100% local volunteer production staff offering a wide variety of programming including shows in multiple languages, LGBTQ+ focused and community affairs programs, and shows featuring an eclectic mix of musical styles. 

KXSF’s mission is to amplify the diverse voices of our world by providing musically creative and socially aware San Francisco style radio.

Some of KXSF’s eclectic programming includes “The Turkish Cultural Programming,” Saturdays at 2 p.m.; “Friday Morning Frequencies,” Fridays at 10 a.m.; “Ad Lib,” Thursdays at 2 p.m.; “Queerly Drinking,” Wednesdays at 2 p.m.; “Barn Dance,” Wednesdays at 10 p.m.; “The Pastor Tom Show,” Saturdays at 1:30 p.m.; “Francofun,” Saturdays at 1 p.m.; plus many more.

Low-Power FM 

The Federal Communications Commission designated low-power radio stations as a distinct category in 2000. Low Power FM stations are authorized to broadcast over limited areas underserved by public or commercial stations. The FCC grants licenses to nonprofit organizations that agree to use the signal for the public good and to abide by federal regulations.  

The 102.5 FM signal can be heard in most of San Francisco, except where obstructed by geography. KXSF and KSFP also operate online audio streams 24 hours a day. 

Low Power FM stations have opened the airwaves to smaller organizations that would otherwise be locked out of the public and commercial airwaves, where even small stations can cost millions of dollars. IHeart Media, Cumulus, Audacy and several other giant consolidators own all but a small fraction of commercial radio stations in the U.S. Deregulation has allowed these stations to eliminate their local studios, meaning that in many cases none of their programming is produced in the communities they are licensed to serve. 

KXSF and KSFP are committed to serving San Francisco with locally relevant programming created by people from the local community.

–30–

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This is an opportunity to work with an organization dedicated to publishing and broadcasting reliable, relevant and professionally produced investigative reporting and community journalism for diverse and often under-served communities in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. 

We are looking for a high-energy audio journalist who believes in our public-service journalism mission and shares our desire to improve the lives of people in our region. 

We offer a collaborative and supportive newsroom, opportunities for professional development and a creative environment where you will be encouraged to design and tackle bold, ambitious projects. 

The San Francisco Public Press is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within our organization, and through our journalism and community engagement. We believe in supporting a culture of trust between our organization and the communities we serve. We seek to hire colleagues who are committed to these values.

Our new host and reporter will get to shape “Civic,” which launched in 2019, with support from our audio team and the newsroom at large. While the primary focus of this position is reporting for and hosting prerecorded episodes of “Civic,” the person in this role will have opportunities to take on long-term investigative or explanatory projects, either working independently or as part of a reporting team.

Please send a resume and cover letter highlighting relevant experience to jobs@sfpublicpress.org by July 15, 2022, with “Host and Reporter Job” as the subject line. We also ask that you send audio samples, link to a reel or point to previously produced work. If you have questions about this position, contact Publisher Lila LaHood via the same email address.

About the organization

Founded in 2009, the San Francisco Public Press is a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization that publishes and broadcasts independent public-interest journalism about under-covered topics, with a focus on under-served audiences. Our project-based team reporting approach has attracted attention as a model for local in-depth investigative and solutions reporting. Coverage areas include housing affordability, public health, transportation safety, homeless services, digital privacy, environmental equity, immigration and elections.

Our website features original, nonpartisan reporting based on public records and deep sourcing. We operate a community radio station, KSFP 102.5 FM, featuring “Civic,” our flagship weekly news and public affairs radio show and podcast, and “New & Next,” a short weekly newscast focused on civic engagement and local public policy. The station also airs shows produced by many other local audio producers and the best of PRX.

The Public Press is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News and the Local Independent Online News Publishers. We have won dozens of national and local awards from organizations including the Society of Professional Journalists, the Education Writers Association and the San Francisco Press Club.

What the job entails

We’re looking for someone who demonstrates thoughtfulness, grace under deadline pressure and flexibility, and who has experience working in highly collaborative settings on both short- and long-term projects. Our ideal new host is curious about San Francisco, perceptive and open to new ideas — a person who is welcoming to and interested in experiences different from their own, and also a sharp critical thinker who won’t shy away from holding power to account.

We are looking for someone who has experience hosting a podcast or at least conducting interviews for broadcast. If you know you have the above qualities and think you’d be a good fit but don’t have formal radio or hosting experience, feel free to record a conversation or interview with someone you know to demonstrate how you would treat a guest on your show.

We are dedicated to improving our newsroom by working with people with backgrounds that reflect the population of the Bay Area. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all identities and ages. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.

Our audio team

You’ll be collaborating most closely with “Civic” producer Liana Wilcox, who creates the mixes for “Civic.” Liana draws on years of experience at commercial radio stations and in other studio settings.

You’ll also work with Mel Baker, a 30-year veteran of public radio stations, NPR and local television news. He’s program director for the radio station we operate, KSFP-LP 102.5 FM. Mel is also a traffic reporter on the weekends, so you might hear him on other stations.

You’ll report to Lila LaHood, the publisher of the Public Press. Lila attends the weekly radio editorial meetings where the radio team pitches, workshops and plans upcoming shows.

Experience and qualifications

Our ideal candidate will have:

• Two+ years broadcast or podcast experience.
• Two+ years news reporting experience.
• Mastery of and comfort with host interviewing techniques.
• In-depth knowledge of or curiosity about San Francisco’s political and cultural landscape.
• Some on-air experience.
• Fundamentals of digital audio editing.
• Experience working on deadline.
• Familiarity with social media.
• An affinity for working as part of a team.
• Clear written and spoken communication skills.
• Passion for the work we do.  

We are looking forward to meeting candidates with diverse lived experiences and training.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary for this position is $60,000 annually. The San Francisco Public Press offers its full-time employees health, dental, vision and other benefits and four weeks of paid time off (accrued plus company holidays).

We are open to accommodating people with flexible work requirements. This position requires working at least one day per week in our office in the Hayes Valley neighborhood in San Francisco.

The post We’re Hiring a Radio Host and Reporter appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Yesica’s previous work for the Public Press includes reporting about recent increased in fires at encampments in San Francisco and the East Bay, and a series about the experiences of people living in vehicles in the Bay Area.  

The post 2022-23 Ida B. Wells Fellowship Awarded to Yesica Prado appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

FIND THE STORY HERE

FOR INTERVIEWS: Nuala Bishari, reporter — 415-860-7915 or nuala@sfpublicpress.org; or Lila LaHood, publisher — 415-846-3983 or lila@sfpublicpress.org

VISUALS: Nuala Bishari is available to meet for interviews virtually or in person. 

MEDIA ASSETS: See below.

SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 24, 2022) — For more than a year, San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing has wrestled with a growing number of vacancies. Despite having more than 1,600 homeless people on the waitlist for these units, 888 sit empty. By the department’s own estimation, at least 400 of those people have been waiting for more than a year — far beyond its own goal of 45 days.

Nuala Bishari — a reporter for the San Francisco Public Press and a fellow with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network — spent 10 months investigating the city’s methods for getting people out of tents or other short-term shelter and into permanent supportive housing. 

Today, the two newsrooms jointly published “In San Francisco, Hundreds of Homes for the Homeless Sit Vacant,” the first part of Bishari’s investigation of the path from homelessness to housing, in which she found:

• Vacancies have doubled in the past 15 months in San Francisco’s permanent supportive housing — units it has purchased, leased or contracted out to private service providers. 
• Filling those empty rooms would cut the waiting list by more than half — and it would be enough to house roughly one in every eight homeless people in the city. 
• Officials acknowledge that at least 400 people approved for permanent supportive housing have been waiting more than a year.
• The $598 million annual budget for the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing has tripled since the department was created in 2016. The city now has more than 8,000 supportive housing units, but it’s still not enough for all those in need.

During the pandemic, the process for moving people into empty units was complicated by new rules prioritizing housing for people living in shelter-in-place hotels over those living in tents, error-prone tracking software, slowness in transferring applications to service providers, unresolved maintenance issues in empty units, requirements for identification and documentation that are challenging or impossible for someone living on the street, and a chronic shortage of case managers.

High-resolutions images

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