East Bay radio host, entertainer to emcee Juneteenth festival

You could say Faith Alpher is all over the map, having worked – and still working – as an actor, motivational speaker, educator, comedian, writer, radio personality and podcast host.

Add to that list her new job as afternoon host for 101.7 KKIQ, a Pleasanton-based adult contemporary radio station, an announcement coming just days before she will emcee a festival dear to her heart that she has helped organize: the third annual Tri-Valley Juneteenth on Saturday at the Bankhead Plaza in Livermore.

The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and feature a large lineup of musicians, dancers, speakers, artits and community organizations co-sponsored by the Livermore Valley Arts and Tri-Valley for Black Lives, which was formed in 2020 and held the first major Juneteenth event in the region that year.

“I have been in Livermore for almost 25 years, and I’m excited because this Juneteenth I can feel a collective resurgence of finally feeling like people who look like me belong here,” said Alpher, who is Black and a member of Tri-Valley for Black Lives.

The festival also will showcase and celebrate Black-owned businesses offering a variety of food and shopping options.

When asked what Juneteenth meant to her, the East Bay performer said, “it means freedom for everyone,” albeit it came two years later – on June 19, 1865 – for then- slaves of the Confederate state of Texas when Union soldiers finally arrived to spread the news.

When people ask Alpher to explain the holiday, she simply says: “Do you think slavery was wrong? Yes, well, then that’s why you should celebrate it. Because slaves are free.”

Tri-Valley for Black Lives member Isaiah Campbell also said his group is excited to be organizing the festival.

“We seek to uplift Black creators, performers, and entrepreneurs from the surrounding area so we can connect and celebrate our community,” he said.

And for Alpher, a versatile performer who says her “glass is always half-full,” keeping positive is what it’s all about.

A native of New Jersey, raised by a divorced mother, Alpher grew up enjoying the spotlight entertaining others, obtaining her Screen Actors Guild union card when she was only 7. One of the original Jell-O Pudding kids in the 1970s national TV commercials with Bill Cosby, she also starred in some after school TV specials.

“My mom always said ‘pay your dues,’” she said. “It’s kind of cool because now I have an agent in LA.”

Alpher studied communications in college and obtained her master’s degree before relocating to California, eventually settling in Livermore where she and her husband would raise their children.

Moving to the mostly White East Bay suburb, though, did pose some subtle and not-so-subtle challenges for Alpher, who is married to Daniel Alpher, who is White. She remembers walking down the street with her husband and child and being mistaken for the nanny.

She also recalled shortly after giving birth to her first daughter in Walnut Creek, a hospital worker came by and asked if she had already cleaned the room.

“I said ‘no, I just had a baby,’ and she pulled back the blanket, and my daughter is very fair and I am very dark. She was just looking at me and looking at the baby and looking at me again.”

“Thank God I’m a comedian because I just make fun of it, like right now I don’t care, it doesn’t bother me, but catch me on an off day…”

Never one to take herself too seriously, the East Bay entertainer/educator describes herself as a cross between Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett.

“I say Oprah because that’s my left brain, which is analytical, and I love writing. I love talking. I love motivating,” she said. “And Whoopi because I’ve got the edge …No one’s Whoopi, but don’t mind making you feel uncomfortable. And then there’s Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball because I’m goofy.”

The quick-witted versatile performer has written several comedy routines – the most recent “Funny, Flawed and Fabulous” at the Bankhead Theatre in which she poked fun at things she always felt but never said. Like the difference between Black churches with their strict ushers and White churches with greeters “who offer bagels and lattes” and let you sit where you want.

Another favorite subject is the CROWN Act or Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, that bans race-based hair discrimination and was passed in the House or Representatives but blocked by Republicans in the Senate last December.

“A lot of black women have been targeted for their hair,” said Alpher, who sports long blonde locks. “So don’t wear braids, don’t wear lots, don’t wear twists. I talked a lot about that. People were laughing and kind of cringing.”

Alpher said people often marvel at her hair and tell her they didn’t know Black people grew such hair.

“I’m like, yes, my hair grows,” the 55-year-old entertainer/comic said. “This is how I wear my hair. I am very lazy. I love my hair. But anyway, stuff like that. It’s about the ridiculousness. … They would never tell a White man, “Hey, can you wear that comb over a little more to the left?”

More serious are her one-woman autobiographical shows in which she mixes comedy with heavy subjects. Alpher has written several in which she plays some 20 different people, including her mom, her dad, her in-laws talking about things that have happened in her life.

“I don’t want to be afraid to share about the hard times because somebody out there will think, ‘Oh My God, I went through the same thing,” she said. “I went through the same thing and I can make it . I can come out of this hell that I’m in… there’s hope, everyone wants hope.”

Her favorite work though is motivational speaking, especially at middle schools, where she candidly speaks about getting kicked out of school and other traumatic events such as sexual abuse by a family friend when she was a young girl.

“I believe in full transparency and healing,” Alpher said, noting it wasn’t until her 20s that she realized the abuse wasn’t her fault.

Discussing and addressing race ignited fears in that same traumatic way most of her life, she added.

“By not talking about it I thought I could quietly assimilate according to who I was, but that never turned out well. My soul was culturally lonely moving to Livermore until I found Tri-Valley for Black Lives. I found a safe space to do me.”

For more on Saturday’s Juneteenth celebration, go to TriValley for Black Lives on Facebook. For more on Alpher, go to