Allensworth, California, was the first known town in California that was predominately funded and governed by African Americans. Colonel Allen Allensworth established the city in 1908 with four other settlers who wanted to develop a thriving community for the betterment of Black lives. The town thrived for about ten years solely on the basis of allowing African Americans to own property, learn and live the “American Dream”. The city is still home to African Americans till this day.
Mervyn M. Dymally was the first African American to serve in the California State Senate from 1967 to 1975. Dymally is of mixed Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Trinidadian heritage, so this made him the first Trinidadian to serve California as State Senator and Lieutenant Governor. In 1974, he alongside George L. Brown became the first two Blacks elected to statewide office during Reconstruction in California.
Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke accomplishments come with a long list of firsts including: the first African American woman elected to the California State Legislature; the first Black woman elected to Congress from California; the first member of Congress to give birth while in office; the first African American and first woman to serve on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors; and the first woman to serve on the board of the Los Angeles Federal Reserve Bank. She represented the 2nd District since 1992 and vacated her seat in 2008. Burke broke barriers for women and African Americans in government.
Augustus Hawkins became the first African American to serve from California in the United States Congress. During his career, Hawkins authored more than 300 state and federal laws. His most famous laws were Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Also his 1978 Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which states for the nation to strive for full employment, growth in production, price stability and balance of trade and budget for the federal government to attain. He was known as the “silent warrior” for all of his hard work and commitment to ending unemployment and helping education.
Frederick Madison Roberts was the first African American to serve in the California State Assembly in 1918. He served for 16 years and became known as the dean of the assembly. He was honored as the first person of African American descent to be elected to public office among the states on the West Coast. Roberts looked after legislation to establish and improve public education, proposed several civil rights measures and anti-lynching processes.
A native of South Central Los Angeles, Florence Griffith Joyner ran track for California State University, Northridge and UCLA. Joyner is known for her performance during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. She broke the world records for the 100 and 200-meter dash competitions. That same year, Joyner became the AP Female Athlete of the Year. In 1995, she was inducted into the U.S.A. Track and Field Hall of Fame. Joyner earned three gold medals and two silver medals during her Olympic career.
Orenthal James Simpson was born and raised in San Francisco. His football career ascended to greatness during his time at USC. Simpson set NCAA records and became a two-time All-American halfback. In 1968, Simpson won the Heisman Trophy. He then got drafted to the Buffalo Bills and became the first NFL player to rush more than 2,000 yards in a single season.
Debra Janine Thomas pursed an undergraduate education that Stanford University while earning fame for her figure skating abilities. Thomas earned the senior women’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships during her freshman year. In 1988, Thomas competed in the Winter Olympics at Calgary, Canada. She won one bronze medal, making her the first African American to win any medal at any sport in the Winter Olympics.
One of the pioneering African American student athletes at UC Berkeley was track runner Archie Williams. During his first year in college, he won the NCAA championship 400-yard dash. Williams also won a gold medal for the same event during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After graduating from Berkeley in 1939, Williams went to Mississippi to train a group African American pilots who would become known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
-In 1844, William Alexander Leidesdorff, an Afro-Caribbean businessman from Yerba Buena, is granted 35,000 acres along the south side of the American River in northeastern Sacramento County by Mexican Governor Micheltorena. Leidesdorff intends to operate a cattle-raising enterprise on the property that would produce beef and hides for sale. Leidesdorff would die in 1848 before his dream of cattle riches is realized.
-In 1848, James Marshall discovers gold in Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. Marshall and John Sutter agree to keep his find a secret, but six months later word gets out about the discovery and a rush for the gold fields in Coloma and other portions of the Mother lode begins.
-In 1849, California’s Constitutional Convention in Monterey drafts and ratifies the future state’s constitution. On the issue of slavery Article I, Section 18 of the newly drafted constitution states: “Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this state.” This article clearly outlaws the practice of slavery in the state. A small group of African-American miners establish one of the earliest mining claims in Sacramento County at Negro Bar, on property once owned by William A. Leidesdorff, on the south bank of the American River near what is now Folsom, California. The African-American miners mine the claim for nearly a year before moving on to nearby claims further north. The newer claims at Negro Hill and Massachusetts Flat were more permanent in nature and represented some of the first successful mining claims mined by African-Americans and other groups. Founded by Mormons mining at nearby Mormon Island, Negro Hill was rediscovered by an African-American miner named Kelsey from Massachusetts in the fall of 1849, thus giving the site its name. Mining activity at these sites continued until the late 1850s when the lure of mining began to fade and African-Americans and other miners found their way to the growing cities and towns of northern California. Other mining claims for African-Americans would be found around the gold country from Downieville in the north to the southern mines in Calaveras and Mariposa Counties.
-In 1850, California becomes the nation’s 31st state as a result of the Compromise of 1850 where it is agreed that California would enter the Union as a free state. A small African-American congregation establishes the Colored African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Sacramento in a building at 7th streets between G and H streets. Later renamed St. Andrews AME Church, this congregation is the first African-American church established on the Pacific Coast. The first census of California counts 962 African-Americans in the state with 240 African-Americans counted in Sacramento County.
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born on a southern plantation in 1818. At the age of eighteen, she was bought by Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847, Smith converted to Mormonism and moved his family and slaves to Utah. Mason made the entire trip on foot, walking over 2000 miles tending to the family’s cattle. After four years in Utah, Smith moved his family to San Bernardino, California. When Smith moved to California, the state had just entered the Union as a free state. Although a free state, it was understood that if residents already owned slaves they would not be challenged. In 1856, Robert Smith decided to move once again and this time to Texas, which still practiced slavery. Before being forced to leave California, Mason challenged Smith’s rights as a slave owner and filed a petition for her freedom. She won her case and relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a nurse and midwife. She worked hard, saved her money and made wise real estate transactions. Mason was one of the first Black women to own land in Los Angeles and became one of the wealthiest African Americans in the city. In 1872 Mason and her son-in-law, Charles Owens established Los Angeles first African American Methodist Episcopal Church, the first Black church in Los Angeles.
Architect, Paul R. Williams was born in Los Angeles, California on February 18, 1894. He was the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects and its first African American Fellow. In 1925, Williams designed Los Angeles’ first YMCA for “colored boys and young men.” In 1939, he won an AIA award for his design of the Music Corporation of American (MCA) building in Beverly Hills. He also designed the interior of the original Saks Fifth Avenue building in Beverly Hills. In 1945, he co-designed a unit of L.A. General Hospital and in the 1960s was an associate architect in the design of new terminals at Los Angeles Airport International Airport. Williams has also designed many celebrity clients’ homes including: Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Anthony Quinn.
Liberty ships were cargo ships built by the United States during WWII and were named after deceased Americans. On September 29, 1942, the California Shipbuilding Corporation launched the SS Booker T Washington at its shipyards in Wilmington, California. The SS Booker T Washington was the first major vessel to be named after an African American. The ship’s commander was Captain Hugh Mulzac, the first African American to command a ship in the United States Merchant Marines. Mulzac had an integrated crew (years earlier he had refused to command what he called a “Jim Crow” ship) and made 22 translantic voyages over the next four years.
The African American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO) is a museum and non-circulating library dedicated to preserving the history and experiences of African Americans in Northern California and the Bay Area. It is currently located in the Charles A. Greene building in Oakland, at the corner of 14th and Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland, California,[2] which served as the Oakland Main Library from 1902 to 1951. The AAMLO began as a private collection in 1946, and in 1964 became the East Bay Negro Historical Society, Inc. It later changed its name to the Northern California Center for Afro-American History & Life, before being incorporated into the city of Oakland in 1994 under its current name, the African American Museum and Library at Oakland. Among the more than 160 collections in the library are archives relating to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Africa, and genealogy. Materials include photographs, manuscripts, letters, diaries, newspapers, recorded oral histories, videos, and microfilms. AAMLO’s two galleries host changing exhibitions of art, history, and culture. AAMLO began as a private collection in 1946. Initially housed in a small shop front on Grove Street (now Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard), the collection grew quickly and, in 1960, moved into the Oakland Public Library’s Golden Gate Branch. It officially became AAMLO, a public/ private partnership, in 1994. AAMLO moved into its current location in 2002.
