Similar to a certain curly-haired folk singer whose voice you either love or hate, the longevity of Modern Times Bookstore is due to the collective’s true understanding on the pulse of our society.
“How many roads,” asks Bob Dylan. Feel free to ask the staff to direct you towards the appropriate section for the answer.
Since 1971, this Mission independent bookstore has operated as a collective. The politics to which its staff subscribes shapes the organization’s business model, seeking a decision making process by consensus rather than following the economic climate or technological advances.
Professor Ruth Mahaney, a senior collective member who joined in the early ‘80s, jokingly says, “Modern Times has been around for so long because we pay everyone very little. There’s no good reason why we’re still in existence.”
The original collective was made up of volunteers, mostly political activists who provided the community with a forum for discussion and a source of publications to educate the public.
It all started out as a stock of books purchased with a donation of just $5,000. When Modern Times opened its doors at 17th and Sanchez streets, it shared the space with the Liberation School, a forum for the exchange of ideas on topics such as imperialism or the “Connections Between Marxism, Feminism, and Lesbianism,” taught by Mahaney.
“It was a really small space but there was a table in the middle that people could come and study or have discussion groups,” said Mahaney, “You know, most anybody could teach that had a good idea and was seen as a ‘lefty’ something.”
Pivotal moments in counterculture such as the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York City, a series of demonstrations against police raids in commonly known gay establishments, and the Summer of Love, helped introduce a spirit of exuberant openness that gave way to new communities such as the Castro, collectives like Modern Times and forums like the Liberation School.
Mahaney recalls how she first came across the store one month after moving to San Francisco in 1973, and saw “this very interesting group of people who had this huge, white sign on the sidewalk that they were hand painting for the store.”
At the time, the left was concentrated on labor organizing and grew out of the communist era. Mahaney joined the gay and lesbian community as partners in the movement of the New Left, socialists who read Karl Marx and adopted eclectic political ideologies such as anarchy.
“[The New Left] was very much out of the student movement that sort of grew out of the sixties but saw itself as supportive of all sorts of progressive movements and issues,” said Mahaney. “The war in Vietnam was very prominent in all of our lives in those years. Being progressive meant opposing the status quo and opposing capitalism.”
Modern Times began creating literature sections as eclectic as its political views. Among them, the city’s first feminist as well as queer literature sections premiered at the original store location.
“There were a lot of people still arriving in San Francisco left over from the hippie days and just sort of coming with one small suitcase just to live here. One of the stories about Modern Times is that somebody got into a cab at the airport and said they were gay and wanted to go to the gay neighborhood and they got dropped off at Modern Times,” she said.
As political and social idealism gave way to economic hardships in the ‘80s, Modern Times began struggling financially. By addressing the narrow and dwindling audience of self-defined political activists, the store would not be able to sustain itself nor would they meet their objective of keeping dissident ideas in circulation.
Attracted by the cheap rent, Modern Times moved in 1980 into what is now Mission Creek Cafe on Valencia.
In order to survive and contribute to the surrounding culture, the collective needed to stay relevant to the community.
The bookstore regained its momentum and quickly became a hub of activities supporting the struggle of exiles from Central America.
During that time, Tede Matthews was a member of the collective involved in the Liberation School. He became widely known in the Mission for his activism in supporting the struggles in Central America.
Matthews was part of an organization called the Gay People for the Nicaraguan Revolution. He felt organizations coming together could create greater results than independently.
“I remember back in the eighties, the gay pride parade in June had what was called a Liberation Contingent and it being highly political. I marched with a group of women from El Salvador who weren’t gay women. They were marching with their husbands even, but they had a big banner and Tede was the one who started that,” said Graciela Trevisan, an Uruguayan writer and current collective member who was also part of the so called “Solidarity Movement” of the ‘80s.
It was in the early ‘90s that Trevisan received a phone call from Matthews that lead to the inception of the Spanish-speaking collection of the bookstore.
“He called saying he was going to start the Spanish-speaking section. I thought it was a very pioneering idea for an independent bookstore that doesn’t identify completely as a Latino bookstore,” said Trevisan.
It was soon after that the collective realized they could remain true to their principles by seeking out and featuring innovative and cutting-edge work for their community.
Oddly enough, Mahaney says the store actually does better during conservative times when the community reaches out for help.
When the Gulf War erupted in 1990, Modern Times received phone calls from people who wanted to educate themselves about the Middle East, the economics of oil and the politics of military technology —books whose sales records up to that point would never have justified holding on to them.
After demonstrations protesting the World Trade Organization summit held in Seattle, Washington in 2000 inspired a new generation of activists, Modern Times responded immediately with a Globalization series.
In 2009, the bookstore established a non-profit to run their cultural activities as a survival tactic against an assault from big business chain stores that had recently lead to the death of independent bookstores like Cody’s books in Berkeley and Stacey’s in San Francisco.
Today, Modern Times continues to maintain the curve on social and cultural movements with monthly poetry readings, literary and community events like the Fall Zine Expo and Book Arts Fair.
The cultural legacy of Matthews, who died of complications from HIV, is honored with the Tede Matthews Initiative, made up of a new generation of collective members committed to providing the community with a literate and lively exchange of ideas and ideals.
The initiative partners with Mission community cultural organizations, schools, artists and educators to launch workshops and cultural events to support Bay Area activists and literary communities.
Modern Times continues to stay competitive despite the current threat of online booksellers, by evolving with the present, always looking forward and never looking back.