In the late 1990s, a diverse core of original radio producers and cultural workers organized a working group to restore and catalog their historical tapes, saving them from further deterioration and loss, and making their historical value and lessons accessible to future generations—thus launching The Freedom Archives.
Andres Alegria
Andres Alegria is one of the nation’s leading video editors and is Vice President of Operations at Hoff Productions. Over his 35-year career, he has created, improved, polished, or saved thousands of programs. He has worked for many groups in the Bay Area and Los Angeles on news, documentaries, specials, network series, and syndicated series, as both an offline and online editor. He has received multiple awards. He has worked with all of the producers in the Freedom Archives, from the early 1970s to the present, including many of the programs in the early Latin@ collections, through to the Archives’ latest film, Symbols of Resistance.
Nancy Barrett
Nancy Barrett is a longtime movement activist who, with Claude Marks and later Lincoln Bergman, co-produced and narrated the weekly series, “Nothing Is More Precious Than…” from 1973 to 1976, as well as contributing to other programs. Nancy has organized and been active in the student, civil rights, antiwar, and women’s liberation movements. She has also worked with and helped lead women’s clinics in several parts of the country, including Planned Parenthood, and she directed an AIDS clinic with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Lincoln Bergman
Lincoln Bergman is a poet, editor, educator and radio journalist. He was News Director at KPFA-FM in Berkeley in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has written, produced, and/or narrated numerous radio programs, including the weekly series that are in the Archives—”The Midnight Flash,” “The Real Dragon,” “Nothing Is More Precious Than,” and “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.” He was a foreign correspondent for Pacifica Radio in Havana, and worked for a year at Radio Havana Cuba from 1973–74. He is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade and was Co-Poet Laureate of Richmond, California from 2014–2016. He is the author of a volume of collected poetry, Chants of a Lifetime, a book of poetry on Chinese history, and co-author of a book on Puerto Rican history. His website is www.lincolnbergman.com.
Heber Dreher
Heber Dreher co-produced Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, with Barbara Lubinski, from 1976 to 1995. Their weekly one-hour programs on Saturdays ranged over a wide spectrum of topics, including emphasis on struggles in the South where they both grew up. Heber was active in the anti-war, Black liberation, and anti-apartheid movements, and many of the programs he co-produced focus on liberation movements in Africa. He also initiated a monthly call-in talk show entitled “Frank Talk” (the pseudonym of the assassinated South African leader Steven Biko). In the past, Heber has worked as an attorney, as a public defender, and on California death penalty cases.
Emiliano Echeverria
Emiliano Echeverria is a musical scholar, radio DJ, and author. He coordinated the “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle” collective from the late 1970s through to its ending in 1995, producing or co-producing numerous programs, such as the series “In the Midst of Struggle.” His extraordinary collection of Paul Robeson recordings led to the creation of the Archives CD Words Like Freedom. He also broadcast the “Paul Robeson” show series, as well as series on Pete Seeger and Langston Hughes (“Hughes and Blues”), the latter with Lincoln Bergman. He has produced hundreds of radio programs featuring Cuban and other Latin American music, and these programs continue on KPFA-FM, KPOO-FM, and online with Radio Cuba Canta.
Barbara Lubinski
Barbara Lubinski began her radio news work at WGTB at Georgetown University, introducing a progressive magazine format that mixed poetry and music with news stories. In the early 1970s she worked with KPOO Community Radio in San Francisco, producing “Common Woman,” a weekly program of interviews, culture, and issues on the women’s movement and was also co-news director. In 1976 she, along with Heber Dreher, initiated “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” on KPFA, which developed into a collective of six producers who maintained a weekly news and culture format until 1995. Barbara was instrumental in the production of Wild Poppies, a Freedom Archives poetry CD honoring political prisoner Marilyn Buck. She worked closely with famed singer Barbara Dane to build and maintain Paredon Records. The first of the founders to join the ancestors, Barbara passed away on May 5, 2016, at the age of 73.
Claude Marks
Claude Marks is the Director of the Freedom Archives, leading its work since its establishment in 1999. He is a former political prisoner and lifelong activist. He was a documentary producer, reporter and Production Director at KPFA-FM in Berkeley in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has produced hundreds of radio programs, recorded live music and events, and won awards for both audio and video documentary production. Earlier, he worked at the Pacifica Radio Archives, gaining hands-on knowledge of library-related and archival procedures. He produced or co-produced the weekly programs, “The Real Dragon” and “Nothing Is More Precious Than,” has been involved in all of the CD and video productions of the Archives, and has continued his activism, especially in support of political prisoners.
Kiilu Nyasha
Kiilu Nyasha was a revolutionary journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party. She regularly produced a monthly episode of “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle” on KPFA from the 1980s through 1995, with much programming on Black liberation and political prisoners—including a number of special programs on Black August. She also produced programs on SF Liberation Radio, KPOO-FM, and Radio Free Berkeley. On television, she hosted a weekly program, also entitled “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle,” until 2009, and, starting in 2012, produced live TV programs with the same name twice a month on BAVC Commons (SF). Kiilu also wrote for various online and print publications, including the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper. Her website is http://kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/.Kiilu passed away in the early morning of April 10, 2018 at the age of 78.
Nina Serrano
Nina Serrano is a prize-winning poet, radio personality, novelist, and activist. She produced or co-produced many programs in the Archives, such as the monthly “Cultural Perspectives,” as part of “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle” in the 1980s and 1990s, and numerous programs featuring Mission community poets and musicians as part of “Reflecciónes de la Raza,” and other programs in the Communicacíon Aztlán collection. She is also a playwright, filmmaker, KPFA talk show and poetry program host, and a co-founder of the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. She’s published four books of poetry, and is a former director of Poetry in The Schools and the Bay Area Storytellers in The Schools programs. She’s also the author of Nicaragua Way, a novel set in Nicaragua and San Francisco telling the story of Lorna, a San Francisco Nicaraguan-American poet engaged in supporting revolutionary struggles in Latin America. Her website is http://www.ninaserrano.com/.