In July 2017, GLIDE welcomed Rabbi Michael Lezak to its Center for Social Justice. This position, a Rabbi at GLIDE, was made possible by funding from the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the Lisa & Douglas Goldman Fund and generous individual donors. Recently, we spoke with Rabbi Michael about what a rabbi at GLIDE does. Answer: He bakes!
Continue reading “Challah for Justice!”
If you’ve walked by the corner of Ellis and Taylor on any given weekday over the last few months, there is a chance you have seen a “fishy” operation taking place. Giuseppe and Joleen of Pioneer Seafoods have been hauling a truckload of fresh, local, sustainably caught fish to our kitchen on a biweekly basis, leading to the founding of a new institution at GLIDE: Fresh Fish Friday!
Continue reading “Sole Power!”
Every Sunday in January, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm at GLIDE. To sign up, call (415) 674-6080 or email GLIDE’s Advocacy Manager, Ben, at BL@glide.org
According to the 2017 Point in Time Count, there are still nearly 200 homeless families with children in San Francisco. In a city as wealthy as ours, there is no reason why children and their parents should worry about where they will rest their heads at night.
In the New Year, we will need volunteers like you to join GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice in collecting signatures to help End Family Homelessness.
Continue reading “Eye on the Ball: Let’s End Family Homelessness”
In July 2017, GLIDE joined a coalition of 15 agencies across San Francisco to launch the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, which coordinates with San Francisco’s law enforcement agencies and its criminal justice system to re-route willing nonviolent offenders from jail to services. With support from a major grant from the Department of Public Health (DPH), GLIDE will be hiring new staff to support LEAD, including outreach workers and case managers. Paul Harkin, who oversees GLIDE’s HIV/Hep C Prevention and Harm Reduction Services, will manage GLIDE’s participation in the pilot program, with help from Harm Reduction’s Janet Ector, who will act as Program Coordinator.
Continue reading “The Way Forward: GLIDE and LEAD SF”
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM). According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one in three women and one in four men have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime. La Casa de Las Madres, a local empowerment program for survivors, reports that the San Francisco Police Department responds to about 4,200 domestic violence reports annually.
Continue reading “GLIDE’s Raija Freeman-Patterson on Domestic Violence Awareness Month”
The following reflections are from Lillian Mark, GLIDE Community Safety and Training Manager and were originally delivered to GLIDE’s congregation on September 17, 2017.
Continue reading “Leading with Heart: GLIDE’s Community Safety and Training Team”
GLIDE stands with the 800,000 DACA Dreamers who are our neighbors, friends, colleagues, loved ones and fellow Americans, including the more than 220,000 throughout California and here in the Bay Area.
Continue reading “GLIDE Stands with All Immigrants”
The GLIDE Legacy Gala may have come and gone but who says the inspiration needs to end? Not us! The Legacy Committee wants to keep the good going and has connected with some of our partners to learn more about what ‘giving back’ means to them and why they decided to participate in the Gala. First up is Bob’s Steak & Chop House with Chef Thomas Rhodes. Check out our Q&A below but be warned: this will definitely inspire you in more ways than one, and you may just be craving a good steak after reading it.
—The GLIDE Legacy Committee
Continue reading “The Bay Area Gives Back”
Welcome to another edition of Eye on the Ball. This week we’re bringing you another installment on tenants’ rights. We’ll cover how to deal with landlord harassment. Renters in this inflated rent market, especially those in rent-controlled apartments, all too commonly find themselves the target of landlords seeking to cash-in on the demand for housing by pushing out their older tenants in favor of new ones who will pay more.
Continue reading “Eye on the Ball: San Francisco Renter Harassment Guide”
“I’m not a professional photographer, I’m a political organizer. I happen to use the camera to tell the story of the work I do.”
—Bob Fitch, Civil Rights photographer, former GLIDE seminary intern, and author of Hippie Is Necessary
From the nostalgic perspective of this year’s 50th anniversary, San Francisco’s Summer of Love in 1967 can seem like a harmonious celebration of youth culture and creative alternative lifestyles. But the great influx of young people, popularly labeled hippies, from around the country that summer was controversial from the start.
GLIDE welcomed the hippies and, indeed, championed them as early as June 1967, when San Francisco city officials released a statement declaring their rejection of the youthful visitors, who had already begun congregating in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. In a press release, GLIDE’s Rev. Cecil Williams responded on behalf of GLIDE, defending the youthful arrivals and chastising the City for its unwelcoming response.
“We are very disturbed about the statement by the city officials which in essence rejected the pilgrims,” read the statement from Rev. Williams, “the Flower Children, who are coming to San Francisco this summer. As members of the Christian community, we are committed to the acceptance of all men whether they are on vacation, attending conventions, or seeking a new community.”
As the hippies gained prominence in the Haight-Ashbury and throughout the city, GLIDE saw an opportunity to celebrate “the beautiful people” by publishing a look into their lives. The Glide Urban Center, which was then a center for GLIDE’s advocacy work on a range of pressing social issues, commissioned Bob Fitch, a GLIDE seminary intern and later a major civil rights photographer, to create a photo essay about the hippies, which was eventually published under the title Hippie Is Necessary. The introduction to the essay explains further:
“In the last few years, Glide has intentionally gravitated toward cultural movements with major ramifications for the people—present and future. In the last year, the people who have caught Glide’s attention have been “the hippies”—as branded by the popular press. During the year the hippies have captured international interest—and have regularly confounded Glide. Glide believes that hippie developments in the Bay Area may have long range ramifications for everyone. As another step in making current trends and history self-conscious, we invited Bob Fitch to engage the new community and say in photos and text what he wants to say. His conclusion is that ‘hippie is necessary’.”
To further protest the city’s rejection of the hippies, GLIDE hosted a special Sunday Celebration entitled “Born Free.” The service featured radical poet Lenore Kandel, who read her banned poem “Circus,” and nightclub singer Ann Weldon singing “Born Free.”
In his sermon that day, Rev. Williams urged that hippies be accepted as they are, even if they looked different than what GLIDE members were used to at the time, because “the meaning of being a free man is that we no longer have to worry about how men look.”
Hippie Is Necessary is archived at Stanford University Libraries along with Bob Fitch’s other work. Fitch photographed a number of other programs related to GLIDE, including the Black People’s Free Store, and Huckleberry House for Runaways—both projects that were sponsored by the Glide Urban Center.
More of Bob Fitch’s work with Glide’s early programs, along with a diverse selection of other photos and artifacts from the Summer of Love, are now displayed in GLIDE’s Creative Space at our 330 Ellis Street location. This exhibit is, as always, free and open to the public.
