Rev. Dr. Kathryn Alice Jorgensen, 86, Unitarian Universalist minister, professional street and theater performance artist, and co-founder of the Faithful Fools Street Ministry in San Francisco, died peacefully after midnight on Monday, January 15th, in Berkeley, CA, surrounded by her children.

        Kay, as she was known, was born in 1932 in St. Paul, MN, the elder of two daughters of Dr. Detlof Emanuel Johnson and Alice Otilia Palmquist Johnson. Throughout their lives, Kay and her sister Carolyn faced many adverse situations together.

… READ MORE

As the government lurched back from a shutdown on January 22, the status of the federal budget remained in flux. President Trump signed another short-term continuing resolution, meaning the government is no closer to settling on final funding numbers despite being months into FY2018. One of the most at-risk agencies is the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its proposed $6.8 billion in cuts for affordable housing programs, which would dramatically alter how the United States serves its low-income and homeless populations.

… READ MORE

On the morning of January 3, passers-by reported that a group of people were being sprayed with a hose while sleeping in their tents on 16th and Bryant streets. Members of the Coalition on Homelessness went down there to determine who exactly was spraying folks trying to sleep. During an attempt to interview the people found there, no one spoke on record and there was much confusion as to who they were being sprayed by.

… READ MORE

In my Cellblock

Ducking suckers

And cops,

Drama never stops,

No need to be specific;

It’s prison, that’s to

Be expected-headphones on,

In my own zone

Listening to music,

Making my life terrific;

God feels your pain,

God feels your pain,

God feels your pain,

Suited and booted

In the wee hours,

… READ MORE

Black presence means civilization building, an

essence of conscious realization.

Proof against a white hegemony dominated by

swinging circumscision.

Black presence means anti capitalist – pro

pooe, the (product of our environment.)

keeling before the representation of bloodshed

The state of surveillance; cops crashing a pool

party, Cops shooting without worry,

The grand jury-giving normative validation

to white supremacy.

… READ MORE

Before I begin this poem …

I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence …

In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

On September 11th 2001 …

I’d also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence …

For all those who’ve been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped or killed in retaliation for those strikes …

… READ MORE

Barbaric, struggle going on among pirates…

One part poitics, the other the justice system.

Thought it was, an Illusion, tell I got lost 2 the Corporation.

Billions of dollars they make, from my Isolation from my loved ones,

And Fam. I guess, it’s really metaphorical, for supply and demand.

Every time I try 2 stand, I fall deeper into the Quicksand they

Call “system”.

… READ MORE

There is nothing in the world

thats of a greater value to me

than you- the Black woman

mother of civilization – first

Lady of the universe to who

all praises are due!

And truly

had it not been for our

foreparents the great Kings

and Queens of Egpy, Asia,

and Africa, who gave birth

to All other nations And

taught them how to live –

… READ MORE

Doctors confined

Inside the same open sore wounds

That they bandage up but never heal;

A Mother’s weary heart confined

Inside the knowing that the Devil’s playground

Is the only recreation that this community can afford.

God confined to a myopic dream,

Settles indifference smuggled into His creation

As a result of the humanity trying to fly too close to the sun

With no experience of the lightness that comes with being humbled.

… READ MORE