The Berkeley Remix

This episode charts the uphill battle medical researchers faced in securing the needed resources and funding to combat the AIDS epidemic. The discovery of the epidemic coincided with the rise of fiscal and social conservatism in national politics with the election of Ronald Reagan. Public health budgets were slashed and there was little sympathy or support to fight a disease affecting gay men. In...

This episode explores a crisis that threatened to derail the developing collaboration between public health officials and the gay community. By the late 1970s, researchers had identified the city’s bathhouses as sites for the spread of disease, especially among gay men. Facing ineffective educational initiatives and a new, fast-growing epidemic, San Francisco’s Pubic Health Department ordered the...

Episode 3 –The Gay-Positive Health Community Before AIDS This episode takes a step back and examines the efforts of public health officials in San Francisco to establish a relationship of trust with the gay community. For years, homophobia had pushed this ostracized community, gay men in particular, to seek underground health services at establishments where they could receive treatment from sympa...

This episode takes a look at the medical community’s first encounter with AIDS in San Francisco. As reports began to circulate of a mysterious disease affecting gay men, fear spread even faster than the virus itself. Here medical researchers and healthcare professionals discuss how the health community grappled with this fear of the unknown: from medical institutions and staff refusing to treat pa...

This is the first of six episodes of First Response: AIDS and Community in San Francisco, the third season of the UC Berkeley Oral History Center's podcast series The Berkeley Remix (previously known as Tales from the Campanile). In this episode, we provide some social and political context for the city before the arrival of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco, and hear stories from the researchers, communi...

Join us here in January 2018 for season 3 of our podcast series! "First Response: AIDS and Community in San Francisco" draws from the thirty-five interviews conducted by Sally Smith Hughes with the health researchers and practitioners who faced the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco during the early years of the crisis.

In the second episode of Tales from the Campanile Season 2, OHC Director Martin Meeker talks to OHC interviewer Shanna Farrell about her forthcoming book, "Bay Area Cocktails: A History of Culture, Community and Craft," out September 2017. They talk about the basis for the project, the relationship between food, agriculture and cocktails, and why the project is about more than what's in the glass....

In our first episode of our second season, Martin Meeker discusses the Oral History Center's Freedom to Marry project. Shanna Farrell interviews him about the origin of the project, his cohort of narrators, the power of language, and the impact of the movement. We hear a clip from one of his interviews with Thalia Zepatos. Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucblib.link/OHCPodcastS02E01

Introducing our second season of Tales from the Campanile, a production of the Oral History Center at the University of California, Berkeley. In this special two episode season, we'll be taking a look at some exciting new oral history projects. In the first episode, Shanna Farrell will interview Martin Meeker about his newly released Freedom to Marry project. In our second episode, we'll flip the...

In this historic year for women in politics, our new podcast series, From the Outside In, seeks to showcase important interviews in the Bancroft Library collection with women who, against tremendous odds, broke through glass ceilings and forged their own paths in the political arena. The six episodes of this podcast chart the political advancement of women in the United States through the lives an...

This episode explores how LaRue McCormick and Helen Gahagan Douglas used electoral politics to advocate for change during the 1930s and 1940s. Like many women, their work focused especially on helping the poor and communities of color. Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucblib.link/OHCPodcastS01E02

This episode looks at women’s political activities at the community level. For civil rights activist Francis Albrier, community organizing proved extremely important in breaking down racial barriers and advancing civil rights reforms. Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucblib.link/OHCPodcastS01E03

This episode covers the political ascendance of women of color in sixties-era California. Featuring March Fong Eu, this episode shows how women broke through the dual barriers of race and gender to take their place in state and national politics. Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucblib.link/OHCPodcastS01E04

This episode explores the rise of women advisors in the structure of party politics. As seen through the experiences of Elizabeth Gatov and Patricia Hitt, women increasingly commanded equal footing in campaigns and policy discussions throughout the long sixties era, and eventually earned a seat at a political table traditionally dominated by men. Read the full episode transcript here: https://ucbl...

This final episode reflects on the progress women have made in the political arena and the many struggles that still lie ahead. Featuring interviews with Senator Barbara Boxer and San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim, the finale looks at the role of women in politics toward the end of the twentieth century and explores the possibilities in the twenty-first. Read the full episode transcript here: http...