Presentation: Halfway to the Stars:

San Francisco Cable Cars Go to the Movies

lang! Clang! Hang on for a wild ride as we hop on and off cable cars in movie after Hollywood movie. Funny, scary, or just wonderfully wacky, San Francisco’s iconic mode of transportation plays a variety of roles in this program of carefully curated clips from films including Yours, Mine, and Ours, The Rock, Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, and What’s Up, Doc? Presented by Jim Van Buskirk.

Presented in partnership with San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's (SFMTA) Photo Archive and San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Art in City Hall program for the exhibition Moving San Francisco: Views from the SFMTA Photo Archive 1903 - Now

Before the film presentation, join the SFMTA Photo Archive for a guided tour of the exhibit Moving San Francisco: Views from the SFMTA Photo Archive 1903 - Now. Tour starts at 5pm in the North Light Court at City Hall. Late arrivals should proceed to the ground floor to join the group in the gallery hallway.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026: 6:00pm

Koret Auditorium - Lower Level

Main Library

100 Larkin Street

sfphoto@sfpl.org

From Our Communities:

Asian Americans Shaping Bilingual Education in SF

Celebrate the legacy of Lau v. Nichols and the power of community advocacy in advancing bilingual education. Join K-12 students, university partners, educators, and community organizations for an afternoon highlighting student voices, the history of dual immersion, and the grassroots movement that expanded language access for generations. This program aims to bring together the broader Asian American community around a shared commitment to education with a special focus on dual immersion programs and the grassroots advocacy that made bilingual education possible in the United States.

Sunday, September 20th, 2026: 2:00pm

Koret Auditorium - Lower Level

Main Library

100 Larkin Street

Younk@sfusd.edu

Social: San Francisco Correspondence Co-op

Explore the world of mail art with the San Francisco Correspondence Co-op, a monthly social club for snail mail artists, letter writers and people who love the USPS. If this sounds like you, then you've come to the right place. The Co-op is a lively group of beginner mail artists as well as practitioners making some mail art together, sharing ideas and having fun. 

The Co-op meets the third Sunday of every month; no meeting in December. 

Presented by Book Arts & Special Collections.

Sunday, September 20th, 2026: 1:00pm

Learning Studio - 5th Floor

Main Library

100 Larkin Street

bookarts@sfpl.org

Eyewitness to the Resistance:

Photojournalists on the Front Lines of Protest

17 September, 2026 - 31 December, 2026

Art, Music & Recreation Center Exhibit Space - 4th Floor

Protest photography records more than a crowd. It captures the messages people carry, the coalitions they form, the spaces they occupy and the responses their presence provokes. It also reflects a photographer’s choices: where to stand, when to press the shutter and which moment will represent a larger event.

Historical photographs from the San Francisco History Center are presented alongside recent work by Pro Bono Photo photographers. Together, the images trace continuities in public protest while recognizing the distinct history, purpose and stakes of each movement.

Presented in connection with Eyewitness to the Resistance: Photojournalists on the Front Lines of Protest, an Oct. 22 panel discussion hosted by Indivisible San Francisco and Pro Bono Photo. Participating photographers will share their work and discuss the role of photojournalism in documenting protest, civic action and pro-democracy movements throughout the Bay Area.

Eyewitness to the Resistance Opening Reception

Thursday, September 17th, 2026: 6:00pm

Art, Music & Recreation Center Exhibit Space - 4th Floor

Main Library

100 Larkin Street

ArtMusicRec@sfpl.org

Celebrating ¡VIVA!

SFPL continues its yearly tradition of celebrating Latinx Heritage Month, September 15 to October 15, with vibrant ¡VIVA! programming that collaborates with Latinx community artists and partners to share their diverse cultures with all San Francisco residents. Keep an eye out for ¡VIVA! programs or stop by the Latinx Center Open House with music, author readings and community partners to learn all things ¡VIVA! on September 26 at the Main Library.

The Unbuilding Archive:

Liberated Futures for the Site of Compton's Cafeteria Riot

June 4, 2026 - October 22, 2026

James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center - 3rd Floor

Image: Ach Kab, The Unbuilding Archive, 2026, digital collage.

Source images: Jennifer Cheek (1993); A.D. Bache (1853); Rincon Hill Panorama (c. 1851/1910), OpenSFHistory.

The Unbuilding Archive marks the 60th anniversary of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot, the first well-documented trans and queer uprising against police violence in the country, at the crossroads of Turk and Taylor Streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Today, the building at 101-121 Taylor Street is occupied by GEO Group, the largest private prison corporation in the country and main contractor with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to operate detention centers, continuing an occupation of carceral power at a site of historic resistance.

In response, the TurkxTaylor Initiative and the broader Compton’s x Coalition have emerged to liberate the site and imagine an alternative future that honors its legacy of resistance. We approach the building as a microcosm where interconnected structures of oppression—colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and ableism—can be dismantled at a local scale to uncover possibilities for collective liberation.

This exhibition centers trans liberation while recognizing that all systems of domination are intertwined. We begin with the building’s current carceral occupation, tracing its transformation back to its construction in 1908, and grounding our imagination in the land itself by honoring the Ramaytush Ohlone stewardship. From that space, we share speculative works developed through community workshops, drawing from Susan Stryker’s archival materials, and offering expansive visions for transforming Compton’s into a space where liberated futures can be imagined and built together.

The American Indian Cultural District's

Mapping Genocide

04 September, 2026 - 21 January, 2027

Government Information Center - 5th Floor

The American Indian Cultural District's Mapping Genocide exhibition examines San Francisco's legacy of commemorating the ideologies and individuals who spearheaded the genocide and displacement of American Indians through public art in the Civic Art Collection and street place names in San Francisco.

Through visual art, sculpture, mapping and documented interviews, the exhibition explores whose histories have been celebrated in the public realm and whose have been erased. It confronts these difficult truths while reimagining the future of public art, monuments and place names through an Indigenous lens.

This interactive exhibition expands public understanding of San Francisco's history by elevating Native perspectives, increasing the visibility of American Indian cultures and histories and fostering community dialogue about truth, healing and representation.

Presentation: Mapping Genocide with San Francisco's American Indian Cultural District

Little Brown Dolls No More:

The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle

21 August, 2026 - 14 January, 2027

Filipino American Center Exhibit Space - 3t Floor

Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle pays reverence to Filipino boxers and their innovation to American boxing, a colonial import turned powerful expression of identity, resilience and resistance. The “little brown doll of the Philippines” was a patronizing nickname used by sports writers in the 1920s and 1930s to refer to Filipino boxers. The boxing ring or “the squared circle,” however, became a platform for these fighters to claim dignity, pride and visibility in the early twentieth century amid racial tensions and American empire expansion. 

This exhibit traces the evolution of the sport from the Presidio of San Francisco where the first American troops were deployed to the Philippines for the Philippine-American War (1899-1902), and then back to San Francisco where these young Filipino men threw their first punches on American soil, and where a fighter forgotten by history named Francisco “Pancho Villa” Guilledo became the first Filipino flyweight boxing world champion in 1923. Many other Filipino boxers would follow Pancho Villa to train and fight in San Francisco at legendary gyms and venues like Civic Auditorium, Dreamland and Newman’s Gym. 

Destination: San Francisco

May 9, 2026 - January 10, 2027

SFO International Terminal

Aviation Museum & Library, Departures Level 3 - Pre-Security

SFO Museum has partnered with SFPL's San Francisco History Center and local historian and former San Francisco Chronicle urban design critic John King on a new exhibition, Destination: San Francisco. The exhibition   offers a vibrant look at how our city built its identity as a world‑class travel destination—tracing decades of promotional efforts from iconic brochures and bold graphic design to imaginative marketing campaigns. The San Francisco History Center's San Francisco Travel Association Records  collection provided rich context for this story .

This exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to see how SFPL’s archival collections are interpreted and brought to life in a museum setting. If you can, take time to visit SFO and explore the city’s travel history.

Pre‑security access; no ticket required.

Read the press release for more information.