SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The City of Sacramento is launching a new effort called the African American Experience Project, and they're looking for input from the community.
Former Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn is featured in the first video for the project.
“The way the local government in Sacramento and every other city across our nation discriminated against all sorts of people, but in this case African-American people, and now they are one of the co-leaders of a project to tell that history, I think is a pretty significant evolution for our city,” Hahn said.
The City of Sacramento has even dedicated on section on their website for the community to get involved.
“They’re asking for our community to use their own voice. They’re not trying to tell the story for us. They are trying to get us to tell the story, and so far, people have been responding. And I know there is always a concern that the whole story doesn’t get told, so let’s tell our story,” he said.
Sean DeCourcy is the Sacramento Historic Preservation Director.
“This project is the first project in an effort to document the history of culturally significant groups in our city and tell their story and allow their voices to come through,” DeCourcy said.
The project will include extensive research, oral histories, community outreach, workshops, and final documents to record and encompass all findings of this project.
“I just think people who are in their 20s have no idea what it was like versus now," DeCourcy said. "Most of our neighborhoods, you couldn’t live in if you were Black into the 60s. I think most people today find that hard to believe. People have a bias towards California anyway... We always think California is this utopia. I’m like, 'No, we did the same stuff everybody else did.'”
The first community meeting is tomorrow. If you’d like to learn more about the African American Experience Project, the meeting is tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Sacramento Youth Center Theater on Del Paso Boulevard.
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