Prometheus 6

Those wishing to attend today's "Slavery in 19th Century California" program, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Museum of the African Diaspora, are requested to RSVP online at www.moadsf.org/visit/calendar.html. They can call the admissions department after 10 a.m. at (415) 318-7144 to see if seats are still available.

The exhibition, "Slavery: Inhuman History," runs through April 30. The museum is at 685 Mission Street. Further information is available at www.moadsf.org and (415) 358-7200.

SAN FRANCISCO
Slavery in Gold Rush days
New discoveries prompt exhibition, re-examination of state's involvement
- Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Adam Willis was brought to California as a slave in 1846, gained his freedom nine years later, then searched the country using newspaper ads to find his family and build a home for them in Solano County.

The recent discovery of Willis' 152-year-old manumission record in the Solano County Archive has, along with other records from that era, stimulated a new examination of California's past that's been left out of the Gold Rush history books.

The existence of slavery in early California and the debate over whether it would enter the union as a free or slave state had momentous import. That past is featured in a special program this afternoon at San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora, known as MoAD, as well as in a new exhibit that opened Wednesday.

"As you know, slavery just tore apart so many families," said Vallejo resident Sharon McGriff-Payne, who found Willis' document in August while doing research for a book about the history of African Americans in Solano County.

Like many former slaves, Willis ran newspaper ads searching for his family, said McGriff-Payne, one of three speakers at today's 2 p.m. presentation, "Slavery in 19th Century California." Such ads ran in newspapers with black readership throughout the country as late as the early 1900s.

The museum has incorporated material about California slavery, some of it never shown to the public before, into an exhibit called "Slavery: Inhuman History," which also features a traveling exhibit on slavery in New York, thus giving visitors a perspective on African American life on both coasts from the colonial period through the 1800s.

The documents regarding Willis and another former Bay Area slave, Plim Jackson, will have their first public viewing.