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Public Talks

Free! All Talks are at 518 Valencia (near 16th Street, one block from 16th Street BART) and begin at 7:30 pm  unless otherwise noted.


Our Public Talks are partly underwritten by the City Lights Foundation and Rainbow Grocery Cooperative.




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Archive of past talks

All our Talks have been integrated into our digital archive at Foundsf.org, and may be easier to access there.

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Wed., February 11, 2026, 7:30pm

The Fall of the Junípero Serra Monument: The Unknown History

Public Talk at 518 Valencia

Excerpted from Foundsf: 1907 was the year the Serra monument was placed in Golden Gate Park. This early 20th century date awkwardly corresponds in time to the erection of monuments to Confederate generals across the Jim Crow South. Like the Daughters of the Confederacy who built those monuments to glorify their “lost cause” of slavery, the Serra monument ceremony was presided over by California’s Native Sons of the Golden West. (This group was dedicated to falsifying and glorifying the Gold Rush and promoting a burnished history of “great white men.” The actual gold rush was a half-decade rampage following the seizure of California from Mexico when American “settlers” began the 25-years-long genocide carried out on California’s First Peoples.)

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