"Standin' in a Hard Rain" Interview and Q&A with Author/Activist Joel Eis

On Thursday March 26 at 6:30pm the San Geronimo Valley Community Center's Valley Arts and Lectures Series will host author/activist Joel Eis in conversation with Albert Flynn DeSilver. Eis claims to have become an activist "in utero" and his mothers refusal to cross a picket line when he was a child didn't seem like a radical move, it's just how he was raised. He often says his life's path was laid out, often, by circumstances out of his own control. In his own words Eis says, "Standin' in a Hard Rain draws on my knack for being in the right place at the right time. As a result of forces over which I had no control I was not only on the front lines and in the streets, but in the room for planning some of the major events of the 1960's."

Eis was present at many "inflection" points in the 60's & 70's. He was a part of the Freedom Riders in the Deep South, the Strike of '68 at S.F. State University (the longest, most violent student strike in American History, the Draft Resistance with David Harris and Joan Baez, the Grape Strike with Caesar Chavez, Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver and the Panthers. He even faced a bayonet at his own throat from the National Guard at Berkeley's People's Park. He also used his training as an actor, director, and designer in important radical and progressive theatre companies for progressive change. This put him in front of the crowd and backstage with the makers of ideas.

In 2023, after much encouragement from those who had been regaled with his many stories, he wrote his memoir "Standin' in a Hard Rain". It turns out its release couldn't have been more timely. I had the thought that when he was writing his memoir, Eis could not have imagined we would be where we are right now as a country ...or maybe he did. Although we are in unprecedented times, there is a lot to be learned from this generation about what it takes to protect Civil Rights and Democracy. Please join us for this special event.