This story originally appeared on KQED.org by Kevin L. Jones. Ebony McKinney, a tireless advocate for the arts who pushed for diversity in the community and for unity among local organizations, died unexpectedly on Saturday from complications related to pneumonia and lupus. She was 41. The San Francisco Art Commission (SFAC), where McKinney has worked off-and-on since 2005, announced McKinney’s...
Michael Roman, a prolific Chicano artist who died December 26, 2016, will be remembered and celebrated at the St. John Coltrane Church at 2097 Turk Street on Friday, February 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. Roman created art incorporating stencils, paint, silkscreen and textiles. He worked with big names like Madonna, Santana, Betsey Johnson and Kate Spade. His colorful, vibrant and imaginative art...
Though he had lived on the streets for years, Mathew Fiame still found ways to stay connected with his family. But on December 29th, a stabbing on Valencia Street claimed the 39-year-old’s life. The circumstances of the stabbing remain unclear. “He was always the strong person, the protector of everybody, and for him to have passed the way he did,...
In art and in life, Michael Roman was a man of many layers, colorful visions and haunting complexities. The stencil artist and silkscreen printmaker, best known for layered prints depicting cultural and political icons, died on Monday, succumbing to severe health complications. He was 60 years old. Three months ago, Roman was out to see a movie with his partner...
A “buck wild” exterior didn’t stop neighbors on the streets from seeing Eddie “Tennessee” Tate as a helpful, industrious neighbor. Tate was one of two people killed in a shooting Sunday night on 16th and Shotwell streets. He was 51 years old. Tate had lived on the streets of the city for decades and was well known for his compassion...
Traduccion en español aquí. Manuel Barrientos, the proprietor of San Francisco’s first Guatemalan bakery, was 79 when he died on November 25, but for many, his vigor and dedication to his craft made his age difficult to gauge. When Barrientos was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given just three months to live, it was not his own death that...
For three months, Fidel Amezcua, known to most by the name Happy, fought for his life. But on Saturday the 29-year-old, who worked as a custodian for the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, succumbed to the injuries from a gunshot wound to his abdomen that had left him in critical condition on June 26. “I want people to know...
San Francisco artistic visionary and founder of the Mexican Museum Peter Rodriguez died July 1, 2016 at 90 years of age. Friends remembered the Stockton, Calif. native as a gifted artist, a perfectionist, and a collector who helped Chicano art to be seen and appreciated in San Francisco. Rodriguez was the oldest of eleven children and started receiving recognition for...
Silvia “Mamacoatl” Parra tried to heal the world with her music, art, spiritual work and activism. Over the span of several years in the Mission, Parra touched countless lives and pushed back against global injustices with art and community collaboration. On December 13, 2015, Parra died in Mexico of stomach cancer. She will be honored tomorrow at a memorial and...
Steve Brandwein had a daily routine: He would leave his spare Mission District apartment and walk downtown to the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Room near Market and Montgomery, where he had been a member for 47 years, play chess with other members or read up on the latest chess goings-on, and return to the Mission after work to visit Adobe Books....
On Christmas morning, Café la Bohème owner Awad Faddoul called his chef, Glenna Randolph, as he does every year. He thanked her for her gifts to him and his family, and she gently scolded him for giving her a box of chocolates, saying it would take her a whole year to eat them. “That’s okay, I’ll give you another one next...
When budget issues plagued the San Francisco Unified School District in the early-80s, former San Francisco Board of Education member Rosario Anaya’s vote would decide one of two things – across-the-board salary cuts for members of the teacher’s union, or eight teachers would lose their jobs. “The union was very powerful – you knew better than to go against them,”...
Friends, neighbors and family remembered the kindness and joyfulness of Mohamed Shaibi, a 38-year-old father of three who died this weekend from the wounds he suffered during an early morning fire that broke out last week in his family’s apartment above the store he managed at 24th Street and Treat Avenue. The fire was extinguished quickly but left the building in ruins and the whole...
The line cook who was mistaken for a gang member and killed near Hog & Rocks, where he worked, was buried by his family last week in the Mexican hometown he left four years ago. Only now, in the process of mourning his death, have details come out about the 22-year-old co-workers nicknamed Tío. Hog & Rocks staff liked Gaspar...
