Isabel Wilkerson's new book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story Of America’s Great Migration (Random House) tells the story of the African-American migration from the South to the North and West, from World War I through the 1970s, when many began migrating south again. The NYT calls it "a magisterial new history," and Wilkerson previously won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism as their Chicago bureau chief. She's speaking tonight in Oakland, at a KPFA event at St. Paul's Episcopal Church (7:30 p.m., 114 Montecito Avenue), and SFist got a few words with her about the book, specifically how it relates to African-American communities in the Bay Area. more ›

BeyondChron has a civil point/counter-point debate going on about Yoshi's SF, which opens its doors today. But let's go back a bit, shall we? If you didn't know, San Francisco has the most cheery pockmark on its record: the "Negro removal" period. During this time historic buildings were torn down and black Western Addition residents were shooed out of the city. A movement that "never succeeded in driving all blacks from the Fillmore," but... more ›

After a break of a few weeks, Gavin Watch is back with a launch party and a spiffy new web site. They already have some great content up already, mainly a video of Gavin at Fake Question Time II trying to reach an audience of mainly African Americans who live in the Bayview by trying to "talk black." Thankfully, the words " fo' shizzle my nizzle" were not spoken, but, well, check it out. more ›

Chip Johnson in the Chron is reporting on a promotion in Oakland to get people to hand in hand guns. The promotion this time around is basically if you hand in your gun, you'll get tickets to an upcoming concert. The upcoming concert this time around is Guns n' Roses at the Oracle on December 15th. more ›

After an unproductive week at the MLB winter meetings, the A's heated up the winter stove again: they traded minor league OF Andre Ethier to the Dodgers for major league OF Milton "Insert Game-Based Nickname Here" Bradley and major league IF Antonio Perez. That is: they traded a bird in the bush for two in the hand. Ethier was the AA Texas League player of the year--Bradley, the prize for the A's in this deal is 27 years old, and he hit .290/.350/.484 for the Dodgers last season. As is often the case when the A's acquire a player, Billy Beane is rumored to have coveted him for quite some time. more ›