Against the Grain

Fund Drive Special: Voices from KPFA’s Past

Civil rights, women’s liberation, the labor movement, battles over the environment: those struggles were fought and won by millions of people, inspired by the ideas of iconoclasts and visionaries.  And KPFA was there to capture and record those struggles and the ideas that nurtured them.  We’ll feature some highlights from that inspiring history, including from … Continued


Beginning in the late 1980s, mass attitudes in the U.S. shifted dramatically toward greater tolerance of LGBTQ people and greater support of gay rights. What accounts for this rapid and sustained shift? Jeremiah Garretson examines a number of factors, including the AIDS crisis, grassroots activism, news coverage, fictional portrayals of gays and lesbians on TV, … Continued


It’s easier to remember the histories of defeat, than those of social transformation. But in the three years preceding the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, the country experimented with a form of socialism that was both top down and bottom up. Historian Marian Schlotterbeck discusses how under Salvador Allende’s government, the radical left fueled changes at … Continued