Susan D. Anderson Curatorial Talk at Sierra Presbyterian Church - March 20th!
1 of 3 free community events to complement the current Art in Public Spaces exhibition, We Are Not Strangers Here: African American Histories in Rural California
EVENT DETAILS:
Susan D. Anderson Curatorial Talk - We Are Not Strangers Here
presented by Nevada County Historical Society
March 20th at 7pm
at Sierra Presbyterian Church
175 Ridge Rd, Nevada City
Please join us to meet Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles whose research culminated in the creation of the exhibition, We Are Not Strangers Here: African American Histories in Rural California. Anderson will provide an overview of her research about California's hidden African American past. She will speak about contributions by Black Californians to the state's agricultural and mining heritage, and the civic atmosphere in California during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Starting during the Gold Rush and continuing through today, Black Californians have been part and parcel of rural areas. While it is widely recognized that many Black people who migrated to California moved into booming cities, African Americans are not strangers to rural California. Rural Black residents opened schools, worked the land, and exercised vigilance about the equal rights of citizens. Over successive migrations in the 19th-and 20th-centuries, generations settled in agricultural and rural areas from as far north as Siskiyou County, here in Nevada County, to the Central Valley, to the Imperial Valley in the South.
We Are Not Strangers Here: African American Histories in Rural California is on display at the Rood Center from January 31 to April 18, 2025 and is a collaboration between the Cal Ag Roots Project at the California Institute for Rural Studies; Susan Anderson of the California African American Museum; the California Historical Society; Exhibit Envoy; and Dr. Caroline Collins from UC San Diego. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 11th Hour Project at the Schmidt Family Foundation. It is presented by Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with the County of Nevada and Nevada County Historical Society.
SUSAN D. ANDERSON BIO:
A fourth generation Californian, Susan D. Anderson has traveled to every region of the state from the Oregon border to the frontier with Mexico, and from the Mojave Desert to the Mendocino Coast. She has explored California, researching in local archives, and witnessing the diverse sites of the state’s African American past. Growing up in the Bay Area, she spent a considerable amount of time in wilderness, on family fishing and hunting trips, later as a student, camping in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, and backpacking the John Muir trail in Yosemite while studying literature, art, the humanities, and world politics. During her years in Los Angeles, Anderson curated "100 Years of the California Dream," the statewide touring exhibition commemorating the centennial of Col. Allensworth State Historic Park and was a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion section. In her career as a curator at several institutions, she delivered a celebrated lecture regarding 19th century Black San Francisco, and acquired and developed landmark collections documenting California's African American history including the Tom Bradley Administrative papers, the Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, the Walter Gordon Photograph Collection, papers of civil rights leaders Rev. Jerry Ford of Los Angeles and Rev. John Doggett of Oakland, the records of the League of Allied Arts, and ephemera and artwork from Black Lives matter protests.
Anderson is an author, curator, speaker, and public historian who for many years has been documenting, teaching, interpreting, and writing about California's African American past. Some of the venues where she has delivered public lectures include: the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino, the Presidio in San Francisco, the Wilshire Ebell Club in Los Angeles, the Healdsburg Museum, the Huntington Library in San Marino, the Phoebe Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Scripps College in Claremont. Her work is frequently featured in media including interviews on CBS Sunday Morning, opinion articles in the Los Angeles Times, and articles in the New York Times, as well as appearances on Air Talk on LAist and Bay Curious on KQED.
As History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum, Anderson serves as Principal Investigator of the African American History & Engagement partnership with California Parks and Recreation Department, leading a collaborative effort to restore the Black presence across state parks to help visitors experience rich cultural narratives contained in outdoor spaces. She is a member of the Editorial Board of California History journal, and a member of the Council of Friends, Bancroft Library UC Berkeley. She is former Director of Collections, Library, Exhibitions, and Programs at the California Historical Society in San Francisco, former Interim Chief Curator at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, and former Curator at UCLA Library Special Collections in Los Angeles. For several years, she operated Memory House, a curatorial and public history consulting firm, preserving and making history accessible and engaging for all. Her book Nostalgia for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory and History is available from Northwestern University Press. She is completing a book for Heyday Books in Berkeley, African Americans and the California Dream.
NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY:
The Nevada County Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to celebrating and preserving the history of Nevada County, California. Click here to learn more.
ABOUT WE ARE NOT STRANGERS HERE:
On display at the Rood Center: January 31 - April 18, 2025
While it is widely recognized that many Black people who migrated to California moved into booming cities, African Americans are not strangers to rural California. Rural Black residents opened schools, worked the land, and exercised vigilance about the equal rights of citizens. Over successive migrations in the 19th and 20th-centuries, generations settled in agricultural and rural areas from as far north as Siskiyou County, to the Central Valley, to the Imperial Valley in the South. The traveling exhibition by Exhibit Envoy features these stories and Nevada County Arts Council has collaborated with the Historical Society and the Historical Commission to shine a light on figures from the local community.
We Are Not Strangers Here is a collaboration between the Cal Ag Roots Project at the California Institute for Rural Studies; Susan Anderson of the California African American Museum; the California Historical Society; Exhibit Envoy; and Dr. Caroline Collins from UC San Diego. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 11th Hour Project at the Schmidt Family Foundation. It is presented by Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with the County of Nevada and Nevada County Historical Society.
ABOUT ART IN PUBLIC SPACES:
Art in Public Spaces is a new program of Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with the County of Nevada. Together, we present quarterly displays at the Rood Center, 950 Maidu Avenue, Nevada City.
Art in Public Spaces is a pilot program through which we are developing a process of engagement and selection in tandem with the County and our community.