For black history month, we interviewed two veteran activists of the 1970s Detroit black liberation struggle. In the book, "Motown and The Making of Working Class Revolutionaries", Jerome Scott and Wanda Katz-Fishman describe how black industrial workers understood that gains won from corporations and racist unions would be thwarted by automation and changes in the global economy. They began to study Marxism to understand the system and reformulate their political perspective. The result was 50 years of study, struggle and the ability to anticipate the revolutionary moment we are in today.

Podcast host: Laura Thomas

In Part 2 of our interview with Alameda activist Cynthia Bonta, she tells the story of the manongs, the elderly Filipinos who were forcibly evicted from the International Hotel in San Francisco in 1977 and how it inspired her dedication to telling the Filipino-American story. For Alamedans, it will be significant because the story of how many Filipinos arrived here through their enlistment in the U.S. Navy and what they experienced has yet to be told.

Podcast host: Laura Thomas

The mother of state Attorney General Rob Bonta is well known in Alameda as a spokeswoman for Filipino culture and an activist on behalf of immigrant and renters rights and the Sister City Committee. In the first of a two-part interview, Cynthia Bonta describes her part in the 1965 Delano grape strike, the fight against the regime of Ferdinand Marcos and even enlightens us about the brutal U.S. defeat of Philippine Independence in 1899.

Links & Resources
• PBS documentary recommended in this episode: Delano Manongs

Podcast Host: Laura Thomas