An annual celebration of African Americans’ powerful legacy, Black History Month has been honored in California—and nationwide—every February for nearly 100 years, beginning with Carter G. Woodson's establishment of Negro History Week in 1926. This year, there are plenty of ways to recognize Black excellence in the Golden State and reflect on the continued struggle for racial justice across the country.
“Both the natural landscape and built environment of our state are filled with the significance of California’s African American past,” says Susan Anderson, history curator of the California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles. “Black history is often under-researched and underrepresented, and there is so much out there for people to experience year-round. Black History Month is a way of opening that door.” Explore, honor, learn, and uplift Black history in California through these February events and others that you can experience any month of the year.
Visit an African American Historical Site
As an expert in California Black history, CAAM’s Anderson notes a few historically significant places across the state that “invite reflection, learning, pride, and sometimes heartache.” In eastern San Diego County, spend a night at the Julian Hotel, founded by African American couple Margaret and Albert Robinson in 1887. Head to the Central Valley to find Tulare County’s Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, the site of a restored town that was originally founded and governed by African Americans in 1908, and Stockton’s Moses Rodgers House, the former home of an enslaved man turned wealthy mine owner. Other sites that offer insight into the critical but often forgotten role African Americans played in the California Gold Rush include Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, where visitors can learn about one of the American River’s largest gold camps founded by African American miners, and Sonora’s Sugg House, a boarding house founded by a formerly enslaved couple who came to California during the Rush.
Of course, the state’s two largest metropolitan areas have their share of Black history–related historical sites as well. In Los Angeles, locations include Biddy Mason Memorial Park, where you can learn about the inspiring woman who fought successfully to free her family in 1856, and El Pueblo de Los Angeles, a living museum dedicated to the city’s 44 founders, more than half of which were of African descent. Head 380 miles up the coast, and the Bay Area is home to many important Black Panther Party locations like It’s All Good Bakery in Oakland, while San Francisco’s Mary Ellen Pleasant Memorial Park honors the powerful African American woman who funded anti-discrimination measures in the late 1800s.
Attend a Black History Month Event
From art exhibits to street fairs, California-based organizations are throwing a number of great events for Black History Month in 2024, which this year has the theme of African Americans and the Arts.
Visit Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs website for a comprehensive list of events all around the city, including an African Marketplace and Drum Circle at the farmers’ market in Leimert Park and the 43rd Annual Black Doll Show at the William Grant Still Art Center. At the Californian African American Museum, there are several exhibitions one can visit during the monthlong celebration: Bahia Reverb: Artists and Place presents works of 10 artists, former residents of Bahia, Brazil, which explore how that state, a magnet for the African diaspora, has shaped their work, while A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration takes a look at that historic demographic phenomenon through multimedia installations, sculpture, photography, and more. Elsewhere in the city, the 8th annual Black History Month Festival will be held on Sunday, February 18, at Pan Pacific Park. The celebration will feature dozens of vendors, community music performances, and headliner Ro James. On February 17, the choir of The Colburn School of Performing Arts will present works for voice in the school’s Zipper Hall (free, tickets required).
In San Francisco, the Urban Ed Black History Month Celebration brings together Black entrepreneurs selling their wares as well as food, dance, live music, and spoken word performances on Feb. 10 at Willie L. Brown Middle School. There will also be a Kids Corner and art exhibit. Also in the City by the Bay, Feb. 18 will bring the Black History Month Street Fair on O’Farrell St. in front of the Fillmore Auditorium, which will have live music, food booths, family games, and more; visit the San Francisco Public Library’s site for more events. Across the bay, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center hosts the 2nd Annual Lunar New Year x Black History Month Community Celebration on Feb. 3 to celebrate Asian and African American solidarity through art, music, and dance via a lineup of Black and Asian martial artists, musicians, and dance groups.
For more ideas, explore events hosted by the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society, the San Diego Public Library, UC San Francisco, the University of Southern California, and the cities of Oakland, Livermore, and Pasadena, to name a few.
Put Black Arts and Cultural Institutions on Your Travel Must-See List
Take a deeper dive into African American history, arts, and culture at one of California’s many museums. At the African American Historical and Cultural Museum of the San Joaquin Valley, you can find permanent and rotating exhibits centered on the history of the Fresno area and beyond. The aforementioned CAAM, in L.A.’s Exposition Park, focuses on the broader legacy of Black Americans across California and the western United States through more than 4,000 works of art, artifacts, and historical documents.
San Francisco highlights its African American communities and history year round along the African-American Freedom Trail, which includes stops at the Museum of the African Diaspora in the Yerba Buena Arts District, The MLK Memorial, and a statue of Willie Mays, as well as many great Black-owned restaurants, bakeries, and shops. Near Hayes Valley, find the 34,000-square-foot African American Art and Culture Complex, home to galleries, exhibition spaces, dance studios, a library, theater, and more. In Oakland, visit The African American Museum & Library, which is dedicated to preserving the African American experience through first-hand accounts, including photos, art, periodicals, and diaries.
Across the Golden State, support these great Black-owned businesses, too.
