February is Black History Month AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE VALLEY: To celebrate Black History Month in February, the Historical Society Archives selected these images from our collections relating to the African American experience in the Central Valley.  DAVID JENNINGS These photographs of David Jennings were taken before his death in 1914 at the age of 97 in the Fresno County town of Fowler. According to a December 28, 1908 interview in the Fresno Morning Republican, Jennings was born April 17, 1817 in South Carolina. His boyhood was spent as a house servant on a plantation in that state. Later, he was apprenticed to a tailor. At age seventeen, Jennings married and the couple had five children. His wife, Binna, and children were later sold, and Jennings became the property of Wade Hampton, governor and later United States Senator from South Carolina. A member of one of the richest families in the antebellum South, Hampton owned many plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hampton entered the Confederate service as a Brigadier General and took with him four slaves including Jennings. Mr. Jennings’ job was to look after the General’s horses. At the battle of Bull Run, Hampton had three horses shot from underneath him and Jennings was always ready with a fresh horse. Jennings also was with the General at the battles of Manassas Junction and Gettysburg. A free man after the war, David Jennings remained in the South. He worked in a general store in Columbia, South Carolina where he lived for twenty-seven years. How did David Jennings come to live in Fowler, California? In the years following the War, Jennings daughter, Julia Bell, relocated to Fowler, California. Assisted by friends, she began searching for her parents in the South. She located her mother first and brought her to Fowler. She later located her father in Columbia, South Carolina. Jennings moved to Fowler in 1892, reuniting with his wife and daughter. At first, he worked as a farmer – sowing wheat and corn – and then resumed his trade as a tailor. Early History of African-Americans in the Valley Between 1860 and 1910 the black population in California grew slowly from 4,086 to 21,645 and remained about 1 percent of the total population throughout that 50-year period. There was a small presence of African Americans in some Central Valley towns, due to the recruitment of farm laborers in the region. In August 1908, Colonel Allen Allensworth and four other settlers established the town of Allensworth in Tulare County, founded, financed and governed by African Americans. As this image documents, there were also African-Americans living in Fresno County. The Hutchinson Glass Negative Collection in the Fresno Historical Society Archives, donated by the Fowler Improvement Association, contains a number of photos of the Fowler African-American community, including these images of David Jennings. Unidentified lady This unidentified young woman posed in the Fresno studio of photographer E.R. Higgins for this compelling portrait in the 1880s.
William Bigby & friends Fresnan William Bigby (on left) and two friends posed for this formal portrait before shipping out to fight in World War I.
Unidentified family in Fowler A photographer captured this unidentified Fowler family in a home portrait, circa 1914. A number of photographs depicting the African American community in Fowler are part of the Paul Hutchinson Glass Negative Collection housed at the Society’s Archives. The collection of over 330 images documents Fowler’s people, homes, businesses, and street scenes, circa 1914.
Baseball team The Fresno Cubs, photographed at the Fink-Smith Playground, circa 1914, were the first all-black amateur baseball team in Fresno. From the Black Oral History Project Collection. Front row: Frank Robinson (middle), Earl Jones (left). Middle row (l-r): Joe Holmes, unidentified, Percy Bost, unidentified, Clarence Watkins, unidentified. Top row: Happy Seixas ( right), Carleton Bigby (left).
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