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Black Life in the Sacramento Valley (1919-1934) (36 pages)
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Page: of 36
Black Life in the Sacramento Valley Page 9 of 37
table.
Chico Fire House on Main Street between 4th and Sth, next to the City Hall, ca. 1925.
(Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico, and Chico Fire Department)
4, THE AGRICULTURAL LIFE
Chico is located in the middle of the Sacramento Valley, an agricultural region which starts in
Sacramento, the state capital, and goes about 160 miles north, as far as Redding. The farms have rich
soil and require a lot of irrigation, because it doesn't rain for about seven months out the year.
The valley is fed by the Sacramento River and its tributaries. In 1848, gold was discovered in one of
those tributaries, the American River, which set off the California Gold Rush. Many towns in the valley
date back to that time, and have had a black presence for nearly 150 years. Chico's black residents have
been documented back to the 1850s.
Every house in Chico had at least one citrus tree in its yard-orange, grapefruit or tangerine. I also
became acquainted with persimmon, quince and loquat, all of which grew in Chico. My mother canned
peaches and apricots every year. And we always had eggs, because my stepfather raised chickens on the
side, to add to the income. Just about everybody in Chico grew vegetables in their backyard-string
beans, tomatoes, lettuce, collard greens and mustard greens.
The streets were lined with stately black walnut trees. In the fall, we would gather the walnuts, crack
them and pick out the flesh, then pour a mixture of walnuts and figs in one of those hand meat grinders
and make patties to eat in the winter. We would sell some of the walnut meat to confectionary stores
which made their own ice cream, or used it in their soda mixtures.
Our family ate well, but we didn't have money. I had to start working when I was about 13. Summertime
brought summer work harvesting the varieties of crops which are synonymous with the name California.
You got 5 cents for picking a 40-pound lug of peaches. Henry and I would go out early and work until
we knew we'd earned $2. Then we'd knock off and go swimming. It would be 90 degrees every day,
from around June until September. Other times I harvested prunes, olives and oranges, or worked in the
rice fields, loading 100-pound sacks of rice onto a wagon.
There were a lot of ranches in the Chico area. In my early years there, I would see cowboys on
horseback, driving herds of cattle down Main Street, or shepherds and their dogs coming through the
middle of Chico with whole flocks of sheep.
In Red Bluff, about 40 miles north, I watched the performance of two magnificent black cowboys, Jesse
Stahl and Ty Stokes. They competed throughout the West, wherever rodeos were held, because there
http://www.cmonline.com/boson/freebies/blackhistory/fleming2.html 12/28/04