1997, Ed Pearl was the recipient of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ “Culture of Liberation” Award.” The award title comes from a quote from Amilar Cabral, “Culture contains the seed of opposition becoming the flower of liberation.”  Below is the lightly edited essay, written by Carol Wells, that was used in the program book. Other recipients of this award included Paul Conrad (2002); Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum (2004); June Wayne (2009); Reverend James and Dorothy Lawson (2011); Tom Morello (2012); and Dolores Huerta (2014).

Ed Pearl has been politically and culturally active in Los Angles since childhood. Raised in Boyle Heights, his first organization was Habonim, a Labor Zionist group that he joined at age ten and remained active until 1956. In 1958, Ed linked his passion for music and politics when he opened a club in Los Angeles that became a mecca for the emerging folk and rock musicians of the 1960s, and a focal point for the progressive cultural and political forces that shaped the times. The original Ash Grove, located on Melrose Avenue, thrived from 1958 to 1973, and exposed the entire city, including the recording industry, to a vast range of Black and white folk traditions of the U.S. The club was a magnet where cultures, politics and music merged, legitimizing the country’s unique multi-cultural heritage and providing an important platform for the emerging voice of the 60s generation. 

The Ash Grove hosted events and was a social meeting place for people involved in a variety of causes - from the Civil Rights to the Anti-Nuclear and emerging student movements. As the Viet Nam War deepened, he helped found the Peace & Freedom Party in 1967. Ed was unabashed about his politics, and it created enemies. The Ash Grove was first struck by arson in 1969. After a benefit from many of the great performers that had appeared at the club, it reopened. Fire struck again in 1970, when six men affiliated with an Anti-Castro group broke into the club and set it afire. The final fire, on November 11, 1973, totally destroyed the club. When Pearl reminisces about the original Ash Grove it’s not with sentimentality, but with pride about the club’s accomplishments. “I dignified people’s culture and I brought ethnic musical heritage and culture to the people in Hollywood.”

Ed’s contribution to the cultural life of Los Angeles was even more laudable during the next twenty-three years. In a sense the city at large became the Ash Grove. For numerous organizations and in countless public events, Ed produced vital cultural experiences that sustained a progressive vision during the darkest periods of the Nixon-Reagan years. In 1973, after the U.S. sponsored coup against the democratically elected Allende government in Chile,  Ed worked as the Cultural Coordinator for the Los Angeles Group for Latin American Solidarity (LAGLAS). He staged concerts by numerous Mexican and South American musicians, who had little or no exposure in the U.S., and those who have been ostracized by their countries for being too political in their musical expressions. He was involved with the founding of the Citizens Party in 1980 and in 1984 worked with Jesse Jackson’s California Primary Campaign.  From 1978-1987 Ed enriched the airwaves at KPFK with “Up from the Ash Grove,” a ninety minute program of peoples’ culture, music, and politics. 

Ed produced more than a dozen major plays of the San Francisco Mime Troupe from 1979 to1984, always connecting appropriate community political groups to the theme of the productions. In 1982 and 1983 Ed and Cheri Gaulke co-directed the “Target L.A. : Anti Nuclear Music and Arts Festival,” which turned a downtown parking structure into a fairground with stages, bands, poets, performance art. installations and “games of nuclear chance.” Perhaps nothing shows Ed’s commitment to the marriage of culture and politics more than his “Art Against Apartheid” show which toured Los Angeles high schools for two years, from 1985 to1986. With the help of numerous poets, musicians, and actors, inner city students were educated about domestic racism and South African Apartheid. 

A serious effort began in 1987 to reopen the Ash Grove, an effort which took almost a decade and included a large number of concerts and events. Along the way, Ed produced yet more San Francisco Mime Troupe shows as well as an extended series of cultural/political events supporting the Pro-Choice movement. 

In July 1996, the new Ash Grove opened on the Santa Monica pier. Based upon the ideal of the original club and drawing upon a new generation of musical innovators, the new club showcased an extraordinary range of regional and ethnic music in an atmosphere of authenticity, collaboration, and respect. The Ash Grove of the ‘90s was not about nostalgia. While old friends and heroes of traditional music and the ‘60s scene performed, today’s ingenious musical genres - Blues, Cajun, Jazz, Afro-Latin sounds, World Music, Tejano, roots rock, folk, hard rock, Bluegrass, Celtic, Gospel and others given a nurturing home to develop and grow. 

Art and politics are inseparable for Ed Pearl. His artistry and commitment have contributed to the success of scores of political and artistic events he has produced for the progressive community over the past twenty five years. Our purpose today is to honor Ed for his tireless efforts to create the culture of liberation in Los Angeles.