BRINGING TO LIGHT THE INSPIRING STORIES OF IMPORTANT BAY AREA WOMEN IGNORED BY HISTORY, RAE ALEXANDRA’S UNSUNG HEROINES: 35 WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE BAY AREA PUBLISHES MARCH 17!
March 2, 2026; San Francisco, CA – Back in 2018, KQED Arts & Culture Reporter/Producer Rae Alexandra was frustrated to learn that just 12% of San Francisco’s landmarks, streets, parks, statues and public art at the time honored women. Spurred by a deep sense of both disappointment and curiosity, she set out to find and document a small handful of important Bay Area women whose contributions had been overlooked and ignored by history. That reporting series “Rebel Girls From Bay Area History” quickly expanded from five essays to 55 profiles of some of the bravest, most consequential women in Bay Area history. 35 of those profiles have now been compiled and accompanied by gorgeous illustrations by Adrienne Simms for Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area, a new book from City Lights Publishers, publishing March 17, 2026.
Unsung Heroines offers an alternative to the prevailing Bay Area history told through the stories of women who made a difference. Did you know about Charlotte L. Brown, a Black woman in San Francisco who in 1863 took the city’s transportation system to court for forcibly removing her from a streetcar, and won her landmark case? How about the first Chinese-American woman to register to vote, Clara Elizabeth Chan Lee, who went on to start the Chinese Women’s Self-Reliance Association? Or Barbara May Cameron, a Native American writer, photographer, and activist who co-founded the first gay American Indian liberation organization? How many other notable women who deserve public recognition have been written out of the history of our region?
Whether educators, organizers, adventurers or entertainers, these inspiring women had a profound impact on our region. Together their stories constitute a new telling of the history of Northern California from the vantage point of women who made a difference. Readers’ perspectives will be permanently altered by the realization of just how many of these untold stories have been lost to time, encouraging them to scan their own environment for traces of women whose stories deserve to be recovered and told.
To celebrate the publication, Alexandra will be participating in a number of book events this spring, including a launch event at City Lights Bookstore this Thursday, March 5 and a pair of Rebel Girls Bingo Nights on March 11 and 12 at KQED headquarters.
Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area is available wherever better books are sold.
About the Author
Rae Alexandra is an award-winning arts and culture writer with a passion for weird history, pop culture and feminist causes. Born and raised in Wales, she started her career in London as a music journalist and worked for uproarious rock ‘n’ roll magazine Kerrang! for a decade. After moving to San Francisco in 2002, she also began contributing to alt-weeklies including SF Weekly and The Village Voice, before landing at KQED in 2017 as part of their Arts & Culture team. In 2023, Rae was awarded an SPJ Excellence in Journalism Award for Arts & Culture. Her love for all things Bay Area soon prompted Rae to pivot into researching and writing about local history. After twenty years living in San Francisco’s Mission District, Rae recently relocated to Stockton, California.
About KQED
KQED serves the people of Northern California with a public-supported alternative to commercial media. An NPR and PBS affiliate based in San Francisco, KQED is home to one of the most listened-to public radio stations in the nation, one of the highest-rated public television services and an award-winning education program helping students and educators thrive in 21st-century classrooms. A trusted news source and leader and innovator in interactive technology, KQED takes people of all ages on journeys of exploration — exposing them to new people, places and ideas. www.kqed.org