We The Arts: Civic Engagement Through Art is an ArtsEd4All project taking place from Juneteenth (June 13) to July 4th, in celebration of Civic Season 2026, where we share a menu of arts events promoting community participation and learning with the arts. This summer is extra special because July 4th, 2026 marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Healdsburg Jazz Festival: JUNETEENTH Celebration on the Plaza
Saturday, June 13, 2026 from 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM, Healdsburg Plaza, Corner of Healdsburg Ave and Matheson St, Healdsburg, CA 95448.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FROM 2-8 PM.
Healdsburg Jazz celebrates Juneteenth with a jazz jubilee, bringing a talent-packed triple bill to the Plaza, headlined by a special tribute to bassist and Healdsburg Jazz favorite Raymond Drummond with George Cables, Rufus Reid, Billy Hart, Bobby Watson, Craig Handy; the Sundra Manning Organ Quartet; and Carlitos Medrano & Sabor de mi Cuba performances. The day will also feature free percussion workshops by Carlitos Medrano, poet laureate Enid Pickett, KCSM’s Greg Bridges, Nubian Cafe Collective, hands-on art workshops with Andi Wong, a pop up art curation celebrating local BIPOC artists with The Rena Charles Gallery, plus creative vendors, and much more!
Black communities throughout the nation celebrate independence every June 19 with gatherings, delicious food, and of course good music.
Our Juneteenth performances celebrate the wide range of Black music and art including gospel, early blues, New Orleans jazz, funk, R&B, spoken word, and straight-ahead modern swing. We will also have arts, crafts, and music workshops in the plaza for families and young people led by esteemed teaching artists. This is a free event, open to the public.
⏺️ CONFLUENCE 🎧 June is Black Music Month. 2026 marks the Centennial Celebrations for jazz legends Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and expressed our gratitude for the gift of music by “Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins and Healdsburg Jazz favorite, bassist Raymond “Bulldog” Drummond.
E Ola Mau: Honoring the 50th Birthday of Hōkūleʻa
2025 marks the 50th Anniversary of Hōkūleʻa’s first voyage to Tahiti.
Hōkūleʻa is a performance-accurate waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaiʻi to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusively traditional navigation techniques. The primary goal of the voyage was to explore the anthropological theory of the Asiatic origin of native Oceanic people (Polynesians and Hawaiians in particular) as the result of purposeful trips through the Pacific Ocean, as opposed to passive drifting on currents or sailing from the Americas.
🌎 LEARN about Hōkūle‘a’s 15th major voyage in her first 50 years. Watch Moananuiākea: One Ocean, One People, One Canoe or In the Wake of Our Ancestors or sing along with “Hōkūleʻa, Star of Gladness“ with Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Wa’a Honua Learning Resources.
Del Sol Quartet on Angel Island: “Wayfinding – 50 years of Hokule’a”
Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 12:00 PM in the Angel Island Immigration Station Detention Barracks Museum, Tiberon, CA. FREE with admission to the museum. $5 adult /$3 youth. Requires a ferry ride! https://www.aiisf.org/planyourvisit
Del Sol Quartet will be giving a world premiere of a new piece called Moananuiākea by composer Leilehua Lanzilotti. The new work for string quartet will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Hōkūle’a’s first voyage to Tahiti.
This program by the Del Sol String Quartet, held in partnership with Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF).
Located in San Francisco Bay, the Angel Island Immigration Station served as an immigration port between 1910 and 1940.
For all immigrants, descendants, and families, Angel Island is a living landmark that symbolizes diverse experiences of detention, racism, exclusion, hope, and determination. Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation protects the historic site, elevates its stories, promotes learning, and celebrates the new beginnings and immigrant contributions that define the strength of the US to inspire a more equitable and inclusive future; one that embodies how immigrants make nations better.
🧭 EXPLORE the history of Angel Island with Angel Island Insight with Del Sol Quartet’s podcast Sounds Current. 🌎 HELP Del Sol violinists Hyeyung and Ben at Shorebird Park Nature Center in Berkeley clean litter off our shoreline. Saturday, June 20, 2026 — Third Saturday Cleanups are organized by City of Berkeley. Receive a service-learning presentation and safety talk on the impact of trash and plastics in our oceans and waterways, and how we can help. Supplies will be handed out along with a map of cleaning locations. Clean for as long as you want and bring the trash back to the Nature Center before you leave.
The Blue Mind Movement: #100DaysofBlue
Each year from May 26 to September 2, everyone is invited to consciously connect with water with the 100 Days of Blue Challenge. Get your Blue Mind on with this open global initiative founded by marine biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols.
🌊 Keep Swimming with BTS, the 2026 Song of Summer, and #100DaysofBlue!
ASAWA UNTITLED
Saturday, May 9, 2026, 11:00 AM – Saturday, June 20, 2026, 4:00 PM, Minnesota Street Project 1275 Minnesota St, San Francisco, CA, United States
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Tuesday – Saturday; 11AM-4PM; Sunday – Monday; Closed.
On May 9, 2026, Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., “a family-run entity” that manages the artist Ruth Asawa’s estate, opened a new exhibition space at Minnesota Street Project.
Co-curated by Asawa’s daughters Aiko Cuneo and Addie Lanier, this inaugural exhibition includes rarely exhibited looped- and tied-wire sculptures for which she is best-known, cast artworks, paperfolds, watercolors, and drawings on paper and copper foil.
https://minnesotastreetproject.com/exhibitions/1275-minnesota-st/ruth-asawa-untitled
“San Francisco was Asawa’s home for more than 60 years, during which time she developed a unique artistic language, raised her family, and became a leading advocate for the arts and art education both locally and nationally,” Henry Weverka, Asawa’s grandson and president of RAL Inc., told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Opening a permanent space here in her adopted hometown seems like a wonderful way to celebrate her centennial for many years to come.”
🌎 LISTEN to stories from Asawa’s family and friends about her public art in the San Francisco Bay Area from anywhere in the world with the Ruth Asawa Public Art Tour. 🎨 CELEBRATE the Ruth Asawa Centennial by hosting your own Dough In!
🌎 LISTEN to stories from Asawa’s family and friends about her public art in the San Francisco Bay Area from anywhere in the world with the Ruth Asawa Public Art Tour. 🎨 CELEBRATE the Ruth Asawa Centennial Host your own Dough In!
Long Live THE LAST HOISAN POETS
Nellie Wong Presente! at Oakland High School, June 20, 12 PM – 4 PM
A public memorial honoring the life of Nellie Wong, Asian American socialist feminist trailblazer, hosted by the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. A celebrated working class poet, fierce labor movement fighter, and revolutionary role model to generations, Nellie’s life was a vibrant tribute to the joy of collective struggle in creating a new world. In the 2010 – 2011 school year, OHS held a competition to name three classroom buildings, all of which had been recently constructed or refurbished. From the many nominated candidates, three distinguished alumni were chosen by the students – Jack London, Louise Thompson Patterson, and Nellie Wong!
Film Screening: Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (June 19 – 28)
Women Make Movies pays tribute to poet & activist Nellie Wong with a free virtual screening of the 1980 film, Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (password: mitsuye626), a film by Allie Light & Irving Saraf. One of the earliest documentaries to broach the topic of Japanese American wartime incarceration, Mitsuye and Nellie profiles Asian American poets Mitsuye Yamada and Nellie Wong, showing them reading their poetry, meeting their family and visiting the Minidoka and Angel Island sites.
Film Screening: Tales of the Tofu Goddess: The Artful Life of Flo Oy Wong June 27 is National Mural Day 2026.
ArtsEd4All pays tribute to artist Flo Oy Wong with free online screening of the 2025 short film, Tales of the Tofu Goddess: The Artful Life of Flo Oy Wong, which introduces viewers to artist & poet Flo Oy Wong through her works of art, culminating with the dedication of the 723 Legacy Mural, a project of the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project, mural artist Desi Mundo, building owner Denise Chinn and artist Flo Oy Wong in Oakland Chinatown.
REALSOUL honors The Last Hoisan Poets — Nellie Wong & Flo Oy Wong & Genny Lim.
This free lesson guide from REALSOUL looks at the poem “Haw Meong Suey” and challenges students to find their own definition of good life’s water through collective poetry. In collaboration with the Last Hoisan Poets, this lesson can be used in English Language Arts and music, perfect for grades 4-5.
https://www.realsoul.us/curriculum/p/long-live-last-hoisan-poets
💐 SHARE your favorite poems. ✉️ FOLD an origami envelope and enjoy a public poetry reading with friends. 🐞 READ sister poets Nellie Wong & Flo Oy Wong read One Eye, a collective poem of American cinquains inspired by Ruth Asawa.
Internet Archive: Vanishing Culture
In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history.
- The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk—in digital form—of disappearing from public view without ever being archived.
- Web sites like MTV News, Gawker, and others are removed from the live web by their corporate owners, leaving only web archives like those in the Wayback Machine as the last remaining public record of their reporting and cultural impact.
- Cyber attacks, like those against the Internet Archive, British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library, are a new form of digital barrier, impeding access to information at community scale.
When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public’s ability to access its own history is at risk. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future. https://archive.org/details/vanishing-culture-2026
Becoming Katharine Graham is a profile of one of the most influential forces in modern American history. The film tells the story of Katharine Graham’s accidental rise to power and how it changed history. At its heart, Becoming Katharine Graham highlights pivotal events of the 1970s that occurred under Kay’s leadership — the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and a violent Washington Post pressmen’s strike — as well as treatment she endured as one of the first female leaders in corporate America. Her Pulitzer Prize winning story is sure to inspire a new generation.
Explore Journalism with LIFE STORIES to learn more about the “Fourth Estate.”
📰 Watch BECOMING KATHRYN GRAHAM on PBS – the story of a painfully shy woman’s evolution from a self-proclaimed “doormat-wife” into one of the most powerful newspaper publishers of the 20th century.