All night Rainbow Sign! After a long day getting down at the Bay Area Jazz Festival, folks could unwind at the Sign listening to the soulful stylings of Jesse James and Mary Love and when the sun came up there’d be breakfast sizzling in the kitchen. It’s a smart promoter who not only knows that there will always be an afterparty but that the afterparty to the afterparty is breakfast.
By the way, Mary Love kicks off our Rainbow Sign Playlist …
"Jazz Festival After-Party" (flyer), June 22, 1972, Rainbow Sign archive, courtesy of Odette Pollar.
A sixteen-page guide to this "multi-dimensional club where beautiful people meet, greet and eat"
A glimpse inside the building today
Even in its swag, Rainbow Sign had style
Rainbow Sign's greatest hits (Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln) from its first year
A glimpse inside the building back in the day
An invitation that connected the era of Soul back to the turn-of-the-century
Just after Rainbow Sign opened, it used a promotion to get people in the door
The layout
Rainbow Sign served food for the body as well as the soul
Two entrancing photos used to publicize her Rainbow Sign appearance
"The high priestess of soul" visits the Rainbow Sign
Thirty rare images of the incomparable Ms. Simone
Handy and friends jazz up the place
Electric vibes at the sign
"a black face...which portrays through corporal silence the spirit of all human experience"
New Orleans comes to Rainbow Sign
A folk legend sings for the Rainbow cause
Music from midnight until breakfast, courtesy of the Rainbow Sign's afterparty
Rare footage of Nina Simone celebrated by Berkeley's mayor and the Urban League
The singer-dancer-poet-memoirist, promoting her new book "Just Give Me a Cool Glass of Water 'Fore I Die"
The Rainbow Sign positioned itself somewhere between assimilation and revolution--but it was all Black Power
Rainbow Sign sponsored the longest poetry marathon ever, according to the Guinness Book of World Records
A tribute, in Yardbird, to Rainbow Sign's "sisterly feeling" and Jayne Cortez's poetic wit and power
Rainbow Sign was, like Alice Walker's real and imagined worlds, populated by uncompromising black women
Mary Ann Pollar and Baldwin appear here as comrades and co-authors of the Rainbow Sign
Black Art consultant extraordinaire
From West Africa to the West Coast
"The essence of Black folk the world over"
Calling black artists near and far
The assemblage that, according to Angela Davis, marked the start of the black women's movement
Prints, films and lectures from a Black arts icon
The first exhibition on the West Coast for the "African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists"
"Framed doll-like figures for the young at heart"
Invaluable footage of the club as it celebrated Black Arts Day with an Elizabeth Catlett exhibition
"the Black artist has a chance others don't to get out of the copout, freakiness and commercialism"
The perfect holiday gift?
Hearts, Spades and Infinity
Elizabeth Catlett's art "celebrates her cultural heritage and protests her people's persecution"
Like many local black leaders, Warren Widener and his took advantage of Rainbow Sign's rentable community space
Chisholm and Mary Ann Pollar: women unbought and unbossed
The Rainbow Sign was a magnet for powerful black women with integrity such as Chisholm
When the Cal administration installed its own chair of Afro-American Studies, dissenters went to the Rainbow Sign to strategize
On the occasion of Nina Simone's concert at Rainbow Sign, Mayor Widener honored both the singer and the club
Local black residents certainly benefited from meeting black leaders, but the benefits went both ways for politicians seeking support
Mary Ann Pollar helped develop strategy to secure economic opportunities for local black women
A high school senior and budding artist credited her graduation partly to help from the women of Rainbow Sign
Elizabeth Catlett's art "celebrates her cultural heritage and protests her people's persecution"
Children were key to Rainbow Sign's project--the next generation had to love and be loved
When the Cal administration installed its own chair of Afro-American Studies, dissenters went to the Rainbow Sign to strategize
A meeting of the minds for Black Arts Day
Groove lessons from an international professional
A high school senior and budding artist credited her graduation partly to help from the women of Rainbow Sign
With Nina Simone's help, Mary Ann Pollar clarified the Rainbow Sign's educational mission
