The history of California’s rural communities, like the ones in Nevada County, cannot be told without including the role of African Americans who worked the land, built homesteads, and worked to protect equal rights for all people.
Art in Public Spaces is a fairly new program of the Nevada County Arts Council, in partnership with Nevada County, that presents quarterly displays at the Rood Center located at 950 Maidu Avenue in Nevada City.
This week approximately 50 guests attended the opening reception for an exhibit titled “We Are Not Strangers Here: African American Histories in Rural California” that will be on display in the Rood Center through the month of February until April 18 for the public to view for free.
The exhibition’s title, “We Are Not Strangers Here,” refers to the little-known history of African Americans’ relationship with wilderness and natural environments.
“Most Black people who migrated to California preferred metropolitan areas, rejecting agricultural labor because of its association with slavery and sharecropping, but African Americans are not strangers to rural California; the culture of cultivating the earth runs deep,” according to the California African American Museum.
The “We Are Not Strangers Here” exhibit moves to locations around California and was curated by Susan D. Anderson, History Curator, who will be offering a lecture on March 20 at 7 p.m.
The contributions of Black Californians and their stories are captured through historical photographs on approximately a dozen oversized posters in addition to text, timelines, and a QR code feature that allows guests to listen to the information on cellular devices.
Stories of what life was like in the mid-1880s for the Black individuals who came to California and formed communities challenge myths about early California.
David Harper, freelance animator and resident of Grass Valley commented on the universal experience that the exhibit depicts.
“I was reading through some of these, and it crossed my mind how going somewhere, working hard, working multiple jobs to try to carve out a niche for yourself and your family, is kind of a universal experience,” Harper said.
The civic accomplishments of the individuals, families, and communities of African Americans helped transform the state and can be seen in “We Are Not Strangers Here.”
The exhibit and the many other events occurring during February in honor of national Black History Month was described as “an awakening” by Jai Hanes, resident of Nevada County and co-founder of Creating Communities Beyond Bias.
“It shows you that there’s not a certain point in history that we have not been. We’ve always been here,” Hanes said. “There’s not a part of the planet that we have not touched. What you’re seeing is the uncovering of history that was either denied or intentionally misplaced.”
Hanes went on to say, “I see this as somewhat of an awakening, if you will. It was something that we knew, but it’s just being shown to the masses.”
Hanes made the point that instead of the stories of history being “told to us and about us,” history should be “told by us.”
“It’s not talked about enough because it’s been taken away,” Hanes said. “Anytime that you intentionally leave elements out of a recipe… it’s going to lack flavor. But when you tell the whole story and abide by the entire recipe in its entirety, this is where the flavor comes out. This is where you can taste all the seasonal ingredients and what it is, and that’s what’s been missing from society.”
This idea for this exhibition grew out of a conversation with Linda Jack of the Nevada County Historical Society in collaboration with Nevada County Landmarks Commission and the Nevada City Historical Society.
“We had African American people living here in the 19th century, and that is because… the Gold Rush was, by its very nature, a transient business,” Jack said. “People poured into the state.”
Most of the local African American community came to Nevada County in the early 1850s and 1860s.
“We don’t have a lot of tangible buildings or other artifacts to tell us about these people because they were part of the agricultural and natural community that we still have today,” Jack said.
Several landmarks where mines, churches, and homes built by the Black pioneers in the 1800s can be toured throughout Grass Valley and Nevada City.
Jack drew guests’ attention to the large “mount” in the focal point of the exhibit, which lists the civil rights issues of the day in a timeline format from 1863 to 1872.
“Most members of the Black community were engaged in this mammoth, important, the most important civil rights issue of our country, the abolition of slavery, and all its tentacles that reached into all kinds of people’s individual lives,” Jack said. “They fought tirelessly for the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women, and public access to school… they were not allowed to testify in court cases where white people were involved.”
On a personal note, Jack commented on the relevant issues of today, which in her opinion, circle back to civil rights issues in the 1800s following the Civil War.
“What I am talking about now is just Linda Jack — the citizen — I’m not speaking for the Arts Council or the Historical Commission,” Jack said. “Issues that are on this board are suddenly with us again. I would not have believed that birthright citizenship, which was resolved in the 14th Amendment in 1868, is now a topic… Hearing the phrase Manifest Destiny back in our public discourse brings back all the memories of when California was founded as a state.”
Jack asked the attendees to reflect on the civil rights issues that are “coming back around” with “much different factors, much different players, and probably a lot of different motives.”
Looking back on the people who went through so much during the Civil War and migration to the West offers “some perspective” to what many thought may have become history.
