Activists honored with Santa Rosa downtown art path

“Claiming Justice” honors activists who have fought discrimination.|

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

October 29, 2023

The honorees

The 14 activists honored in the “Claiming Justice: On the Trail of Local Stories” project:

Evelyn Cheatham (1953-2019): Founder of Worth Our Weight, a cafe which taught professional culinary skills to approximately 500 young apprentices. Worked for police oversight. An accomplished chef.

Bernice Espinoza (born 1981): Poet and civil rights attorney. One of two defense attorneys in Sonoma County who provide free legal counsel to people in deportation proceedings, particularly asylum-seekers.

Magi Fedorka (born 1958): Educator and early LGBTQ-rights activist in Sonoma County. In 1990, proclaimed Pride Resolution before Sonoma County Supervisors.

Vince Harper (1966-2021): An advocate for social and economic justice. Director of Community Engagement at Community Action Partnership (CAP), where he worked for 32 years.

Henry Kaku (born 1948): Has spoken for 20 years about his family’s internment at Tule Lake during World War II. Educator and origami master. Judo Sensei who offered free self-defense classes for Asian Americans.

Bill (1927-2014) and Lucy Kortum (1928—2022): Preserved public access to the coast. Mentored and developed the local environmental community. Were involved with the founding of many environmental and political organizations.

Mei Takaya Nakano (1924-2017): Inspired by the anti-war and civil rights movements to speak of her internment during World War II. An accomplished author and activist.

George Ortiz (1934-2020): Co-founder of Latinos Unidos, California Human Development and many other organizations. Early organizer of Latino community. Marched with Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers.

John Richards (1824-1879): Began successful barbershop and bathhouse in Santa Rosa in 1856. Advocated for political change. Representative at Colored Citizens conventions. Involved with two important African American newspapers: the Pacific Appeal and The Elevator. Paid for education of African American children in town.

Charlie Toledo (born 1950): Executive Chair of Suscol Intertribal Council, which is dedicated to the unity and preservation of Native American culture and a safe place for Native Americans to gather and celebrate traditions.

Anthony Tusler (born 1947): Disability rights activist who documented the 1977 “504 Sit-in” protest at San Francisco Federal Building, a watershed moment in the history of disability rights.

Gilbert Gray (1916-1997) and Platt Williams (1928-2014): Founders of local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Leaders in the African American community.

More than 100 people turned out Sunday afternoon at the downtown Central Santa Rosa Library for a launch of a new public art project honoring local activists both past and present.

Titled “Claiming Justice,” the project features 12 portraits of 14 activists on sidewalk markers stretching from College Avenue to Julliard Park. Each marker has an audio link that allows visitors to hear on their cellphones a brief history of the persons honored.

Following a 90-minute presentation and panel discussion including the five activist honorees who are still living, the project’s creator, artist Kristen Throop, led several dozen people on a walking tour of the markers.

The first stop was at Fifth and Humboldt streets in downtown Santa Rosa, where the marker honors disability rights leader Anthony Tusler. His life in a wheelchair began at age 5, when he was wounded in a gunshot accident that left his legs paralyzed.

At the scene of his corner sidewalk marker, Tusler recalled, “I was at this corner in my wheelchair and there wasn’t a curb cut.” (Now there are cuts in the sidewalk curbs at that intersection to allow wheelchair access.)

“It’s a wonderful thing in Sonoma County to show just (how) much activity is devoted to social justice,” Tusler said just before the tour.

Joining Tusler during the panel discussion at the library, moderated by Throop were poet and civil rights attorney Bernice Espinoza, LGBTQ rights activist Magi Fedorka, educator and origami expert Henry Kaku, and Charlie Toledo, director of the Suscol Intertribal Council.

The library portion of the program began with a short speech by Erica Parker Alabi, daughter of honoree Evelyn Cheatham , who worked for oversight of police and taught professional culinary skills to young apprentices.

Alabi said her mother, who was 16 when Alabi was born and who died in 2019, made personal sacrifices to work tirelessly for others. “Never once did she complain,” Alabi said.

Throop spent more than a year on “Claiming Justice,” choosing the honorees and enlisting a variety of volunteers to help her with research.

“I am so grateful to Kristen Throop for seeking to understand, before making the art,” Fedorka said.

In the audience was Sonoma Academy teacher Rodney Fierce, whose 18 students in his Black American history class last year researched John Richards, a successful 19th century Santa Rosa business owner, for the audio history included in the pathway project.

“Each year, we try to focus on local history,” Fierce said. “This was a fantastic way to teach students how to research. This wasn’t online. We had to go places and talk to people. The students were floored to find out how much John Richards owned of downtown Santa Rosa.”

The panelists spoke vividly of the devastating historical effects of exclusion and victimization prompted by prejudice based on race, ethnicity, country of origin, gender and sexual orientation.

“Honesty, to me, means including the parts that aren’t pretty,” Throop said. “I believe that art is very powerful and I believe that stories have the ability to heal.”

And all of them declared their dedication to fighting prejudice and promoting acceptance of all kinds of people.

“It’s what gives meaning to my life,” Tusler said.

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.