RECENT RESEARCH — A public dedication ceremony for the reburial of Emperor Norton in Colma, Calif., was held on 30 June 1934. Those who are familiar with this part of the Emperor's story most closely associate 30 June 1934 with his reburial, as this is the date when the reburial was solemnized — when dignitaries offered eulogies and speeches; musicians from the Municipal Band and Olympic Club of San Francisco played and sang; and a U.S. Army honor guard fired a 3-gun salute before a gathering of some 200 people. But — as we show here — the burial itself took place nearly 3 months earlier.
TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON
RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY
A commentary advancing the case for naming the San Francisco Ferry Building clock tower the “Emperor Norton Tower” in 2023 — the 125th anniversary of the Ferry Building.
Read MoreFor those who haven’t made a habit of “geeking out” on the subject, the California state legislature’s protocols and historical precedents for authorizing honorary names for state bridges like the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge can be difficult to parse.
This has led many who support adding “Emperor Norton Bridge” as an honorary name for the Bay Bridge to wonder, and even question, whether this is legislatively possible.
It is. Here’s our latest effort to break it down.
Read MoreA portion of remarks offered by Emperor's Bridge Campaign founder and president John Lumea at the Campaign's inaugural celebration of Empire Day in San Francisco's Redwood Park on 17 September 2015. The event was held to mark the 156th anniversary of Joshua Norton's declaration of himself as "Emperor of these United States" on 17 September 1859 and to welcome the 157th year of the Nortonian realm and reign.
Read MoreOn this day in 1872, the Pacific Appeal newspaper published the first of Emperor Norton's three Proclamations that year setting out the original vision for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Here's how the Proclamation appeared on the front page, 143 years ago today.
Read MoreOur friend, Julian Lozos, flags a recent at San Francisco-focused online magazine The Bold Italic, in which writer Sara Brody cites our movement, specifically, as one healthy indicator that — despite the doomsday predictions of some who are wringing their hands the hardest over San Francisco's latest gentrification wave — San Francisco is not on the verge of losing its soul.
Read MoreWritten in 1944 by Lu Watters, "Emperor Norton's Hunch" became a signature song for Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band. In this video, a recording of the song by the band is the musical setting for a quick look at answers to the two questions raised by the song's title: Who was Emperor Norton? and What was his hunch?
Read MoreThe first episode of Up to Speed, Timothy "Speed" Levitch's brilliantly offbeat 2012 travel series on Hulu, is about San Francisco. The episode includes a fabulous segment on Emperor Norton that concludes with Levitch calling for the whole Bay Bridge to be named for him.
Read MoreA San Francisco Chronicle article about different ways that advocacy groups are using the Change.org platform features Emperor's Bridge Campaign founder John Lumea's reflections on how the 2013 Change.org petition to name the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for Emperor Norton became a powerful movement-building tool and a springboard for the launch of the Campaign.
Read More