Desegregating Sacramento
“Desegregating Sacramento” was produced for the Center for Sacramento History using footage and archival material from their own collections. It is part of the Center's film series that explores the history of systemic racism in the Sacramento region in order to provide a historical context for the issues that affect our community today.
Desegregating Sacramento: A Fight for Fair Housing, Part 3
COMING SOON!
Desegregating Sacramento: A Fight for Fair Housing, Part 2
Part One highlighted Sacramento's role in the national effort to end discrimination in public housing. In Part Two, Sacramento is again at the center of the struggle, this time in the fight to end racial discrimination in the sale and rental of private homes and apartments across the United States. Featured in the film are urban sociologist Dr. Jesus Hernandez, author of "Race and Place in Sacramento," and historian Clarence Caesar, author of "A Historical Overview of the Development of Sacramento's Black Community, 1850-1983." Longtime Sacramentans Macia Fuller and Marian Uchida also provide context by sharing personal stories in the fight for fair housing.
Produced by: Chris Lango, Senior Archivist Kim Hayden, Archivist Nicholas Piontek
Film Technician: Chad E. Williams
Video & Drone Services: Steve Davis Media Services
Support Provided by: California Revealed
Executive Producer: Marcia Eymann, City Historian
Historical Advisors: Dr. Lorena V. Márquez, Professor, Department of Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis; Dr. Milmon Harrison, Professor of African American Studies, UC Davis; Clarence Caesar, Retired Historian, State of California.
Special Thanks: Clarence Caesar, Dr. Jesus Hernandez, Macia & Paul Fuller, Marian Uchida, Nathaniel Colley Civil Rights Coalition.
Desegregating Sacramento: A Fight for Fair Housing, Part 1
In this film, we focus on the early landmark efforts to desegregate housing in Sacramento. These efforts place Sacramento on the frontlines in the long fight to end racial discrimination in public and private housing across the United States.
Featured in the film are urban sociologist Dr. Jesus Hernandez, author of "Race and Place in Sacramento," and historian Clarence Caesar, author of "A Historical Overview of the Development of Sacramento's Black Community, 1850-1983." This story is also told archivally through the voice of Nathaniel Colley, Sacramento's first private-practicing African-American attorney and a national leader in the fight for fair housing. To learn more about Nathaniel Colley's life and career, see the Center for Sacramento History's Emmy-nominated PBS documentary "The Time Is Now: The Civic Life of Sacramento's Nathaniel Colley"
Produced by: Chris Lango
Archival Producer: Kim Hayden
Film Technician: Chad E. Williams
Video & Drone Services: Steve Davis Productions
Support Provided by: California Revealed
Executive Producer: Marcia Eymann, City Historian
Historical Advisors: Dr. Lorena V. Márquez, Professor, Department of Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis; Dr. Milmon Harrison, Professor of African American Studies, UC Davis; Clarence Caesar, Historian
Special Thanks: Clarence Caesar, Dr. Jesus Hernandez, Nathaniel Colley Civil Rights Coalition.
Additional Resources
Nathaniel Colley 1984 Interview
Audio files of the oral history interview with Nathaniel S. Colley. The interview took place on March 2, 1984 by Clarence Caesar as part of the Sacramento Ethnic Communities Survey Collection.
Nathaniel S. and Jerlean J. Colley papers
These papers document the legal and civic activities of Nathaniel Colley, one of Sacramento's earliest African American attorneys and a national civil rights leader. For nearly 50 years, Nathaniel and Jerlean made Sacramento their home, working to affect social change at the local, state, and national levels.