In the Library: Hidden Histories of African Americans in the Bay Area

Join us for a special one-night only exhibition of rare materials from the CHS collections. Curated by Susan Anderson and CHS Reference Librarian, Frances Kaplan, the display of these archival materials will help reveal the hidden history of multicultural California's 19th century African American past. Anderson's talk will begin with the Gold Rush and weave California's raucous beginnings into the national narrative - in which African Americans around the country, including famous abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, debated in newspapers and conventions the meaning of the Gold Rush for black America at the time. The photographs, manuscripts, publications, and documents discussed and exhibited in this presentation will allow visitors to experience the urgency of early campaigns for civil rights and the fervent hopes of the largely sophisticated African American community in Northern California. Learn about the beloved ship's captain known as "The Black Ahab" who has a street named for him in West Oakland. Hear a Civil War poem by a distinguished black poet and friend of John Brown that was proclaimed in public in 1864. See court documents recording the lawsuit of a woman who successfully challenged discrimination on streetcars 90 years before Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This In the Library presentation proves that California's history is much more challenging, complicated, and fascinating than we've been taught.