August 29, 2010 marks the 40th Anniversary of what is now know as the Chicano Moratorium, where upwards of 30,000 protesters, mostly Mexican Americans or Chicanos, gathered in Laguna Park in East Los Angeles to peacefully protest the Vietnam War. By August of 1970, the mortality rate in the Vietnam War was disproportionately high within the Chicano demographic, while funding for schools, jobs, healthcare, housing, and other important areas of our daily infrastructure were grossly under-funded or non-existent. Activists, community leaders and students built a broad coalition of support and created a day of education, learning and music to help raise awareness of these discrepancies in the Chicano Community. The day would end tragically just as the rally was beginning in the park as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s attacked the non-violent crowd with tear gas and batons. The result was four dead, including Award Winning Los Angeles Times Journalist and News Director of KMEX Spanish Television, Ruben Salazar.

KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles covered the Chicano Moratorium, and on this episode of From the Vault, we’ll hear actuality from that fateful day in Laguna Park in East Los Angeles. Included in this program are comments from then KPFK La Raza Nueva host Moctezuma Esparza and Rosalio Munoz, event organizer and former UCLA student body President, the only speaker who spoke before the violence from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s broke out.

But first, we’ll check in with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali in 1968, as both would come out strongly against the war, and grow outspoken on America’s participation in the Vietnam War.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

PURCHASE a copy of this program or learn more about the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

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This week on From the Vault we present historical recordings on Haiti, where on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck that was centered very close to Port-au-Prince, the capitol city that now lies in ruins. Our first selection is from a recording of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from 1990, being interviewed just months before his election as President of Haiti. Then we feature a voodoo ceremony recorded with special permission by Pacifica producer Verna Gilles in 1975. Finally, KPFK host Margaret Prescod outlines the ousting of Aristide in 2004 on a special edition of the Sojourner Truth radio program.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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This week on From The Vault we profile one of the great innovative thinkers and visionary geniuses of the 20th Century…. and the man who helped create the field of modern music: John Cage.

We invited KPFK Los Angeles’ Global Village music host and admirer of John Cage’s life and work John Schneider to help us navigate through some of the remarkable Cage recordings contained in the Pacifica Radio Archives, including the only known recording of his “45 minutes for a Speaker” performance. Schneider also introduces The Pacifica Radio Archive’s recording of John Cage speaking about his collaborations with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg (recorded in 1965 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), and John Cage and Morton Feldman from a 1966 conversation recorded on Pacifica Radio’s New York Station WBAI.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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This week on From the Vault Pacifica Radio Archives is proud to present a historic panel discussion on comprehensive immigration reform legislation. In 1982, KPFA Producer Richard Gonzalez assembled three diverse panel members to discuss the historical, emotional and legal issues raised by immigration reform: Joaquin Avila, then-President and Lead Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund; Elizabeth Martinez, a Chicana feminist best known for work, “500 years of Chicano History in Pictures;” and Ignacio de la Fuente of the International Molders and Allied Workers Union, Local 164. The panel was moderated by Armando Valdez, the Director of the Center for Chicano Research at Stanford University.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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For over two years, the same material used in our weekly From the Vault has also been featured on the BBC Radio 5 Live Up All Night program, allowing us to share Pacifica Radio Archives’ rich and diverse history with a UK audience. With this international outreach, we have shared many global voices and highlighted the political temperature of the time, with artist, activists, politicians, and those who would be otherwise unheard. Our BBC audience has been treated to the musing of comics such as Richard Pryor following the Attica Prison rebellion, and the late George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words.” They’ve been exposed to an alternative view of the Democratic National Convention riots back in 1968, and to the people who hit the road taking part in the Poor People’s Campaign. They’ve heard, too, the authentic voices of Noam Chomsky, Audre Lorde, Studs Terkel, Les Paul, and Che Guevara to name a few. In this episode of From the Vault we look back on some of the programs produced for the BBC, featuring this amazing tapestry of audio held within the Pacifica Radio Archives.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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This week on From The Vault, KPFK Arts In Review host Julio Martinez presents original productions of several holiday classics: O. Henry’s The Gift of The Magi, Dylan Thomas’s, A Child’s Christmas In Wales, Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus by newspaper editor Francis Church, and All is Calm: The Story of Silent Night.

These Christmas tales are produced by Julio Martinez and performed by the KPFK Arts In Review Repertory Players.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

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