California
Film opening in Redding spotlights Black people’s experiences in the California Gold Rush
A Mount Shasta artist known for his multimedia exhibit about the contributions of Black people during California’s Gold Rush is about to premier his new movie on the topic.
Filmed in Siskiyou County, Mark Oliver’s “The Golden Ghosts” opens on April 21 at the Riverfront Playhouse in Redding.
The movie is a work of historical fiction based on actual events from the North State’s gold mining days, Oliver said.
The film aims to bring understanding about some of the experiences of the thousands of Black prospectors who flocked to California more than 150 years ago seeking gold-fueled fortunes.
Oliver and his crew shot the film entirely in Siskiyou, Shasta and Tehama counties during the summer and early autumn of 2023 at sites including William B. Ide Adobe State Historic Park, the McCloud area near Fall River and places north of Weed.
While researching his Golden Ghosts project, Oliver worked with Mount Shasta archaeologist Patrick Brunmeier. The two scanned old maps and visited sites in Siskiyou County with place names indicating Black people had lived and mined there in the 1800s.
‘A part of history that’s never been in the history books’
While U.S. Census data shows many Black Americans lived in far Northern California in the mid-1800s, their contributions aren’t widely recognized, Oliver said.
For more than a decade, Oliver has sought to correct that omission.
His past projects include bringing the “Voices of the Golden Ghosts” play to Shasta College in 2019, presenting a documentary exhibit of historic photos and stories from the era that was displayed at Turtle Bay Exploration Park and other venues in 2020 and writing an illustrated history book last year.
His other films include “From the Quarters to Lincoln Heights,” a 2011 documentary about the migration of Black people from the American South starting in the 1920s to Weed, McCloud and other North State lumber towns. It was while researching that documentary in 2009 that Oliver said he learned of the role of Black people during Siskiyou County’s gold rush.
In his book “Voices of the Golden Ghosts,” Oliver wrote that as miners from around the globe descended on Northern California aiming to strike it rich, “by 1852, over 2,000 men of African American descent were in the California goldfields” after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in the small El Dorado County town of Coloma in 1848. By 1860, more than 5,000 Black Americans “had made the difficult trek to California in search of quick wealth,” according to Rudolph Lapp, in his book “Blacks in Gold Rush California.”
Those Black 49ers included both free and enslaved people, who mined alone, formed their own companies or teamed up with white prospectors, Lapp’s book said.
The making of “The Golden Ghosts”
In the film, Black protagonists Money and Tall arrive in the North State, as did many others from varying backgrounds who streamed into the area in the early 1850s, searching for gold. While prospecting, the pair meet a Chinese herbalist who runs a brothel, a Mexican couple who caution them about the risks of encountering white settlers and two Native Americans who have been mistreated by white miners.
The characters and their experiences are composites of people who mined gold in the North State, Oliver said. They’re heading West, Oliver said, “probably toward the Salmon River or the Klamath River.”In the mid-1800s, Black people mined mostly their own claims, not for a company. They searched for gold in remote regions with rough terrains to avoid clashing with other miners, Brunmeier said. By the late 1800s, Black people worked as paid laborers for mining companies at several Siskiyou County mines, including Forks of Salmon.
Mining was dangerous, especially for Black people at the time of slavery in the U.S.
While California was founded as a free state, for Black people “if you didn’t have papers proving you were free … you could be arrested and sent back” to slave owners in other states, Brunmeier said.
More: 27 African-American North State sports influencers honored to celebrate Juneteenth
Local actors performed most of the parts in the movie, including Dunsmuir actor and musician Victor Martin, who played Tall in the film.
“Tall is kind of a reasonable guy. He thinks before he takes action,” said Martin. Money, played by Fred Magee of Redding, is quicker to act, Martin said.
Part of what shaped the two characters so differently is that Tall legally gained his freedom from slavery. Money had escaped slavery to reach California. So Money lived in fear of bounty hunters capturing and returning him to people in another state who claimed they owned him, Martin said.
Both characters live their lives in peril, as did almost all Black, Asian, Native American and other people during Old West times. “I’m glad I wasn’t born in those days,” said Martin. “You had to be a tough individual. I wouldn’t have made it.”
More than a story, the film derives impact by depicting “a part of history that’s never been in the history books,” Martin said.
A special treat for fans of Martin’s music at his Pops Performing Arts and Cultural Center jazz club club in Dunsmuir: The character Tall is a musician and in the movie, Martin breaks out his famous saxophone.
Martin said he worked hard to make his sax echo traditional Native American music. While on location in Siskiyou County, he said, “we could feel the spirit” of the people who had been hunted and abused.
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If you go: “The Golden Ghosts” film premier
- Where: Riverfront Playhouse, 1950 California St. in Redding
- When: Noon and 3 p.m. on April 21. A reception with the actors follows the 3 p.m. show.
- Cost: Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Go to markoliver.org/golden-ghosts-film to buy tickets.
- Information: Go to markoliver.org
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
California
Death row inmate killed in California prison as guards deploy blast grenades to control violent mob attack
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California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials are investigating after a death row inmate was killed at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano on Friday.
Convicted murderer Mario Renteria, 36, allegedly started beating fellow inmate, Julian Mendez, 46, at about 10:30 a.m. Friday, prompting prison staff to respond.
Officers ordered them to get down, but the men failed to comply, according to a CDCR news release obtained by Fox News Digital.
Chemical agents initially stopped the attack, but more than 30 additional inmates rushed Renteria and began striking him.
Julian Mendez was pronounced dead after the jail attack. (CDCR)
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Orders to stop were ignored, and staff used multiple blast grenades to quell the violence, according to CDCR.
Mendez suffered multiple wounds, and life-saving measures were immediately taken. He was taken to the prison’s triage and treatment area, where a doctor pronounced him dead at 11:05 a.m.
Prisoner Mario Renteria was allegedly the first to attack the death row inmate. (CDCR)
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Officials said an improvised weapon was found at the scene, though the type of weapon was unclear.
Renteria remains in restricted housing pending investigation, according to CDCR.
Officials limited population movement to facilitate the investigation by the prison’s Investigative Services Unit and the Kern County District Attorney’s Office.
The Office of the Inspector General was notified, and the Kern County Coroner will determine Mendez’s official cause of death.
The Kern Valley State Prison attack involved more than 30 inmates in Delano, Calif., on Friday. (Kern Valley State Prison)
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Mendez was received from Riverside County on Dec. 2, 2004, according to CDCR. He received a condemned sentence in 2002 for the first-degree murder of two teenagers.
CDCR said Renteria was received from Riverside County on April 27, 2022, and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder (a third-strike offense) and arson.
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Kern Valley State Prison opened in 2005 and houses over 3,100 minimum- and high-security-custody inmates.
Labor leader David Huerta was detained while observing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids taking place in Los Angeles.
The Service Employees International Union California (SEIU) says that its president was injured during the ICE raids and is calling for his release, NBC4 Los Angeles reports.
“SEIU California members call for the immediate release of our President, David Huerta, who was injured and detained at the site of one of today’s ICE raids in Los Angeles. He is now receiving medical attention while in custody,” Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU California, said.
Mayor Karen Bass told NBC4 that Huerta had been pepper-sprayed during the incident.
“He is doing ok physically, but I know what really impacted him the most was the emotional trauma of watching parents and kids being separated,” Bass said. “He’s going into ICE custody and we hope to get him out very soon.”
The mayor said she does not know why Huerta is being detained.
The SEIU issued a statement supporting Huerta, insisting that he was “exercising his First Amendment right to observe and document law enforcement activity.”
“We are proud of President Huerta’s righteous participation as a community observer, in keeping with his long history of advocating for immigrant workers and with the highest values of our movement: standing up to injustice, regardless of personal risk or the power of those perpetrating it,” the union said.
Orr also condemned the ICE raids.
“We call for an end to the cruel, destructive, and indiscriminate ICE raids that are tearing apart our communities, disrupting our economy, and hurting all working people. Immigrant workers are essential to our society: feeding our nation, caring for our elders, cleaning our workplaces, and building our homes,” she said.
Bass said she is going to meet with immigrant support groups to discuss plans for responding to situations like the mass ICE raids in the future.
“My message to them is that we are going to fight for all Angelenos regardless of when they got here, whether they have papers or not,” she said. “We are a city of immigrants, and this impacts hundreds of thousands of Angelenos.”
ICE arrested approximately 44 people in Friday’s raid, according to Homeland Security Investigations.
“Today, ICE officers and agents alongside partner law enforcement agencies, executed four federal search warrants at three location in central Los Angeles. Approximately 44 people were administratively arrested and one arrest for obstruction. The investigation remains ongoing, updates will follow as appropriate,” HSI spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a statement.
COMPTON, Calif. (KABC) — Governor Gavin Newsom toured Clinton Elementary School in Compton Thursday, recognizing Compton Unified School District’s recent gains in academic scores, while also pushing his statewide education goals.
“We have seen academic growth that outpaces almost all districts in the state of California and across the nation,” said Dr. Darin Brawley, the Compton Unified School District Superintendent.
Brawley hosted Newsom, who was pushing his Golden State Literacy Plan, a promise to continue increasing California’s rising reading skills.
The price tag is well into the billions of dollars, a bold move during a time when California is facing a $12 billion drop in state revenues.
Among the programs Newsom is funding, there is one that would reduce the student-teacher ratio from 12-to-1 to 10-to-1. Another program funds Transitional Kindergarten classes in every school district. And at the cost of $4.4 billion, Newsom wants “After School for All” and “Summer School for All” programs to begin.
“Nine hours a day of enriched learning opportunity and a minimum of 30 days during the summer of subsidized learning,” Newsom touted. “Unprecedented in California history.”
Newsom mentioned that his own struggles with dyslexia have spurred his determination to increase literacy in California.
“People were persistent and had my back, and people didn’t give up on me,” Newsom said about how he was able to overcome the learning disability. “I struggle with it every single day. There’s not a day where my dyslexia does not expose itself.”
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