tv Mayors Press Availability SFGTV June 29, 2021 9:35am-10:01am PDT
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and smiling, somebody who died who is black, blue, pink, yellow people. you all right? i'll get wild. i will show up and show out. i want to thank mayor london breed for inviting me to do this and all of you for kicking off this juneteenth weekend here in long beach park. but you know it's nice they're giving up the national holiday, you know, don't ask, don't tell. you know what i'm saying? we can't teach our children about the history in this country of what all this means. we're so happy you can join us for the opening of monumental -- consider this afternoon a monumental reckoning and we have
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dana king who will break it down to us a little later. an extraordinary artist, sharing her extraordinary art installation that honors the history and resilience of black americans. we ain't going nowhere. we built this country for nothing and still we grin better than anybody. monumental reckonings will reside in the park for at least two years. if somebody you know and love doesn't see it today, make sure they see it before it goes away. it will allow me to commune with an ancestors and the black experience. we built the white house you all
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for nothing. i want my acres and a mule god damn it. and what better time to open this show this juneteenth, celebration of our culture and acknowledgement of the struggle that continues today and as of just yesterday, a federal holiday. but before we introduce our poet laurent, give it up again for martin luther mccoy and we're bringing on san francisco's ace poet laurent. where you at tongo? he's so gorgeous. i'm an old woman. i can't take this, okay? this is tongo. hello darling. thank you for being here. >> thank you.
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i talk facing away from the dead. they replace me with the change in my pocket. a penny yet to be invented, you have to know how to cut a throat on the way to cutting a throat. after sleeping on a mattress, made from two garbage bags of clothes, i became content with the small gestures of planation fires. i realized how weird the universe was, so many things interrupt me while trying to dream like your correspondence lawyer. i have 20 books next to a bullet like an old man giving advice before a revolution. explored what is there and found
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no brain washing, i found africa lord. i have a future, it takes place in the south, modern militancy, i'll walk on a missile for food. i'll be tired face to face with the country. old verse bringing multiculturalism replace me with a chest cavity. stories of travel through other people's stories, my mother remembers africa lord. she killed on behalf of you lord. i wore a machete all winter and nobody asked what it meant. i read 1,000 books in front of the world. watch people play for post working surfaces and recreations of a governor's desk, find the bureaucrat and some white people
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scare easier, fantasizing through the art of the poor, trendy lashes locked before god. i hand over my friends lord. lord, i think i'm going to die in the war. like a blue song with no spiritual effect, apartheid white people who give birth to mathematicians, a sunday trip to church, a river mistake for a talking river. violence and drug use made in the image of god of white abolitionists. chemical assurances they were switched from black worker to white worker. in the same way i think about my childhood. fox hole friday nights. committee points out a plan to a priest. cotton king voluntary.
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thinking about reassuring the masses we can figure out our fathers later priest reads it before breaking his parallel, i have never before a poet before. little brother watches big brother friends, they leave rifles on walls. it's a simple matter, this revolution thing, to write a poem for god. (applause) >> thank you. thank you so much tongo. we have the baddest ass poets in the land. give it up again for tongo.
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martha graham, the great choreographer says people from california believe everything is possible. here we is. here we is. and i wanted to also call this day a festival of bad ass women. we've got some bad ass women up in here. okay? and the next one, my sister, my sister, she is a champion for the black community for san francisco and for the arts. she was raised by her grandmother in the fillmore where the yearly juneteenth festival was a highlight of her childhood. she would go on to be the executive director of the african american art and cultural complex in the western edition before entering a life of public service. okay? and today, this woman, she is the 45th mayor of san francisco
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and the first as she's the first african american mayor in the city's history. everybody put your hands together for london breed. i am scared of you. hi miss mayor. it is wonderful to be here. thank you for having me. ladies and gentlemen. and let's give it up for tongo. >> martin luther, thank you so much for opening up today. what a beautiful day. and i just have to take a moment to pause. we're seeing so many beautiful faces without masks. we have been really through a very challenging time, one that we never anticipated.
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i want to start by thanking park and rec and the director of park and rec phil ginsburg. we were supposed to celebrate the golden gate park last year. a lot went into making it is what it is right now. sounds and equipment things we may not see. and i want to thank for the work and fundraising done to make this amazing. so martin luther got the first opportunity to perform and it feels good. we're going to see more activities and events here in golden gate park. but today is so special. i get emotional every time i think about how far we have come as african americans. yes, there are challenges.
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and those challenges will continue to persist as long as we sit to the side and don't work and fight to do what is necessary. to change the lives of what's happening all over the country. not just here in san francisco. today we celebrate that milestone. now, black people, we always celebrated juneteenth as a holiday. amen? so now, finally, people understand the significance of what this means for us. my grandmother, who wasn't far removed from slavery, worked as a share cropper with her family in texas. migrated to san francisco. and in fact, in 1951, that was when the first juneteenth parade took place. dr. wesley johnson junior, the owner of texas playhouse.
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in the fill-mo held the first event there, walked down the streets of fillmore on horseback. willy brown was a part of that group. so many of our ancestors decided on that day we're going to step out proud of who we are and what we represent as black people. juneteenth is so much more than what we see in the celebrations and festivities. it's freedom. it's a new day. it's a welcomed opportunity for us to grow and to thrive and remember of course our history and to learn from that history. to learn now more than ever how we don't want to continue to see the next generation grow up and repeat that history.
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we have work to do. and today we celebrate. we celebrate juneteenth as a national holiday and in fact, yesterday, i signed declaration making it an official holiday in the city and county of san francisco. because i gave all city employees the day off, they all left and didn't show up for work today but that's okay. what i appreciate about so many people, they said i want to take this day to learn more about juneteenth. i want to take this day to serve and to honor the ancestors. dana king and this exhibit monumental reckoning is about honoring those ancestors. it's about the 350 original slaves who were brought to this country by force.
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just imagine that. now, we know dana is going to talk about the exhibit a little later. i couldn't stop thinking about the experiences of black people brought over in chains on top of one another. we can never forget the pain and the suffering. and today as we celebrate juneteenth, i know, i know without a doubt that i stand on their shoulders. i stand on their shoulders and the only reason why we're able to celebrate such an incredible milestone in history has everything to do with their
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sacrifice. i will never forget their sacrifice. i will never forget the sacrifice of my grandmother. i will never forget the sacrifice of our ancestors. so when we pour liebations to call their name, we honor them and make sure we don't forget them but we bring their presence to the surface. this event, this exhibit is so much more to us. it means a rewakening, a renewal of our commitment to reinforce the need to make sure that we honor our history. we honor the struggle. we do the work to make it better for future generations to come. thank you all so much for joining us here today. let's celebrate!
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>> again for the mayor, come on, we've got some bad ass brainy black women up in here. okay? before we go any further, let's reiterate and thank our city partners and civic leaders here tonight, thank london breed and rec and park general manager and his staff. they keep the park together. the park commission and president. director of cultural affairs. arts commission and president. and former acting director of
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cultural affairs. denise, are you here? i love her. i hadn't seen her. okay. everybody having fun? we still have part of this to do. and additionally, thanks go to these participants who aluminate the monumental reckoning team. is the lieutenant governor here? okay. i just want to thank you for being here. all right. so we're going to move right along now. i'm an artist, i am just so glad to be up here introducing an artist, a black woman, a visual artist. she sounds scary to me, i love
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her already. we're going to meet dana king. (applause) dana king, who -- let me see now. dana will talk about -- i can read, i just have to find out which one of these papers this thing is on. all right, dana reveals common threads and shared values and experiences and aspiration and likes to deal with sculpture and knows it helps those alive today compare and contrast their worlds with that of social pioneers. call on them you all, social pioneers whose commitment to excellence helped create modern society. that is where we are right now, is it not? please, i'm going to ask you all
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to bow down. bow down, please welcome dana king. dana, where are you girl? dana. (applause) thank you so much for your work. thank you, thank you, thank you. she's an angel, check it out. i'm scared. >> thank you. how are you? you good? i'm seeing my people out here. it's like a family reunion today. doesn't it feel like that? a family reunion. thank you, thank you for being here.
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you know down stairs in the basement of this building and there is a pile of roots sitting there. i don't know if they were pushing us through the concrete or why they were there. but they were collected in a corner. it made me think that african descendants had our roots cut. most of us don't know where we come from, we don't know who our people are. being here, we've been forced to build our own families and create our own environment and our own histories. but we have deep history. that has come with us, though we may not know all the stories.
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monumental reckoning is a gift back to the ancestors to let them know that though we may not know we love them. we love them, we honor them in everything we do. and we have never forgotten them. never. there were hands that touched monumental reckoning. part of a new family of friends for me. 12 women who helped make the ancestors we're about to see. and i would love for them who are here to please stand up as i call out your names.
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i wanted you to hear those names. we were african descendants who built these ancestors, philippine, chinese, italian american, mexican american, did i miss anybody? we are all family. all family. i doubt very seriously that our ancestors would want us to buy in to the division and separation that has been put upon us from oppression.
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monumental reckoning is about the truth of american history. the truth. and that truth is hard. and that truth is painful. and that truth is ugly. but unless we acknowledge it, it will continue to kill us. we weren't taught our history. i'm a product of public education, all the way through college. i learned last year that francis scott keys was a horrible human being. not only did he own other human beings, he used his power and his prestige and access to double down on legislation that kept us enslaved for
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generations. he sponsored his brother-in-law to become a supreme court justice who wrote the dread scott decision and says african americans can never be citizens. so he was fully invested in the business of slavery. monumental reckoning is the first 350 ancestors who came over here on the first boatload of slavery. the business of slavery. when they arrived in 1619, there were 21 on the boat. we will honor the 350 who were stolen from their people and their
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