Black History in Sacramento: Gold Rush to 1870s

Local historian William Burg presents the first of what will hopefully be a whole series of talks on local history–and, hopefully, other forms of entertainment and educational programming.

This talk will be the first of three focusing on specific periods in Sacramento history when African American civil rights organizations worked collaboratively, with Black organizations throughout the state, with other communities of color, and with white allies, to address inequality and injustice, both citywide and statewide. While this is not a comprehensive history of Black Sacramento, it will include some of the following, and more:

-Black residents of the Sacramento region during the Mexican Period
-Early social, educational, and religious institutions established during the Gold Rush, and the leaders of those institutions
-Stories of early Black Sacramentans, including the stories of former slaves James Williams and Archy Lee, Civil War veteran Robert Fletcher, and opera stars the Hyers Sisters
-The political forces at work in Sacramento before and during the Civil War, including abolitionists, Southern migrants who wanted to bring slavery to the West Coast, and those who opposed slavery only because they wanted California to be for whites only.
-Establishment of the Sacramento Zouaves, an armed Black militia formed after the Civil War that also served as a political organization that got out the vote, and marched with other Sacramento militia organizations.