Thomas R. Simpson, Founder and Director, Afro Solo Festival
Peter Callender, Artistic Director, African-American Shakespeare Company 
Karen Carraway, Visual Artist 
Susheel Bibbs, Opera Singer

Come listen to a lively multi-disciplined panel discussion in association with AfroSolo Arts Festival 20. From the evolution of negro spirituals to hip-hop music, the Negro Theater Ensemble to the African-American Shakespeare Company, the visual arts of the Harlem Renaissance to the works of Kehinde Wiley, this discussion will explore how the arts of the past have influenced art of today and how its impact will be felt tomorrow.

MLF: The Arts
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 non-members, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: Anne W. Smith
Also know: In association with AfroSolo Festival 20. Photo of Thomas Simpson by James Knox.

John Gillis, Ph.D., Professor of History, Emeritus, Rutgers University; Presenter, "What Happens when Shores Become Coasts”
Susan Schwartzenberg, Senior Artist, San Francisco Exploratorium; Presenter, "The Bay Observatory: Musings on the Water's Edge"
Robin Grossinger, Ph.D., Environmental Scientist, San Francisco Estuary Institute; Presenter, "Second Chance: Shaping the Future Bay”
Gray Brechin, Ph.D., Geographer – Moderator

The Save the Bay moment of the 1970s was a premier regional effort at environmental protection and presented a model to the world. It remains an unfinished project, however, for the San Francisco estuary, like all shores, is what Rachel Carson called an “elusive and indefinable boundary,” which can never be saved once and for all.

Today, we are working with perspectives of the Bay that are informed by a deeper, more fluid understanding of both geography and history. Research by Robin Grossinger and his colleagues at the San Francisco Estuary Institute informs us of what it was like before the arrival of Europeans. This is supplemented by John Gillis’ historical study of coasts and coastal peoples. Exploratorium artist Susan Schwartzenberg offers us the artist’s capacity to explore the future through the powers of the imagination.

Together, these three panelists will open up for us the future of the Bay as perceived by science and the arts. They will explore their subject as a regional enterprise, an ecological whole that must take into account all the Bay’s species, including our own.