Diamond Dave Whitaker a beloved fixture in the San Francisco poetry and radical political scene was born and raised in Minneapolis. He came to California at age 19 in 1957 after reading Kenneth Rexroth’s seminal Feb. 22, 1957 piece in the Nationthat suggested something unique was going on in North Beach. He soon became an integral part of the Diggers and the Black Man’s Free Store in the Fillmore. For nearly 40 years, Diamond Dave has been one of many poetry-spinning patrons of the Rainbow family residing in the Haight-Ashbury. At one point, he was regularly referred to as “The Mayor of Haight Street.”
He lobbied for district elections in the 1970’s and has hosted radio shows such as KPOO-FM’s One Struggle, Many Fronts and Indy Bay’s Enemy Combatant Radio.
Diamond Dave remembers when Jack Kerouac burst into Jack’s Pool Hall in 1957 holding the novel that shaped generations of America’s youth. “He ran in with his first copy of On the Road,” Whitaker said. “He had just got it in the mail. He had been waiting and waiting, and it finally got there.”