By Karen Nikos-Rose | UC Davis | Special to The OBSERVER
Sareena Crawford, a doctoral student in history at University of California, Davis, was working with other students on a research project when she came across histories of Black women in Yolo County. She and other students found information about Mary Ann Johnson (née Winrow), one of the first Black women in Yolo County, who was brought by her enslaver from Missouri with only two of her six children. Winrow was not reunited with all her children until after emancipation.
Crawford is now expanding her research for a possible doctoral thesis, exploring the role of Black women who formed “kin groups” throughout Northern California. Mary Winrow and her sons were one of the core families in Woodland’s geographic kin group, she said. Kin groups are generally Black people across different geographic locations, who are not always related, who formed resilient networks in times of enslavement, forced migration and systemic racism.
“I am profoundly grateful to the Black community of Woodland and its elders for sharing their rich history with me,” said Crawford, who lives in Woodland. “Their trust in me to help bring light to these stories is an honor I hold dearly.”
Crawford and five other students’ research into a previously enslaved Black community in Yolo County uncovered enough material to develop elementary school lesson plans and a digital presentation as well as create a display now on view at the Woodland Opera House State Historic Park.
What they found — after looking at four ethnic communities from the area — were photos, maps and stories of a little-known settlement of African American people previously enslaved and their descendants, who lived in Woodland in the middle 1800s and early 1900s. Enslaved persons had been brought with their enslavers to Yolo County, even though California was legally a free state, they learned.
Woodland now has about 1,150 Black residents, but the UC Davis team found a thriving Black community in Woodland and Guinda in the Capay Valley.
Under the leadership of Cecilia Tsu, associate professor of history at UC Davis, students whose fields included sociology, history and English began delving into Yolo County history in 2024. Tsu, a faculty advisor for the California History-Social Science Project at UC Davis, sought with her cohort of students to find diverse histories of Yolo County to share with K-12 teachers and their students to create educational resources for California students.
They combed through collections at the county archives, which included property records, court cases, census records, coroner’s inquest files, newspapers, maps and photographs, Tsu said.
Researching Cultural Communities In Yolo County History
Students initially identified four potential Yolo County communities to study, including Chinese immigrants; African Americans in Guinda and the Capay Valley; Japanese American farmers in Winters; and Mexican agricultural workers during the World War II era.
Perhaps one of the most compelling finds was the story of the Yolo Singing Club, also sometimes called in historical records “The Merry Company.” Many members were descendants of previously enslaved people who lived in Woodland. While this early Black community was known to some historians and families in Woodland, it was not well-known, Tsu said.
Winrow’s descendants and their families who were part of the singing group performed from 1894 to 1905 at the Woodland Opera House, which operates to this day. A photo of that group has long been on display in the Opera House, along with, in the recesses of the stage, an aged poster promoting a minstrel show.
At that time, minstrel shows featured white actors in blackface performing racist caricatures of Black people. Said Tsu, “The Yolo Singing Club’s choice of musical was no doubt deliberate. They selected a lighthearted, family-friendly piece devoid of any racial content that showcased their superb singing and dancing skills.”
Black Communities In Woodland And Elsewhere
California’s Constitution banned slavery in 1849, and the state entered the union as a free state in 1850, but historians have found evidence slavery still occurred throughout the state, including in Yolo County. After the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified in California in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States, the formerly enslaved and their families formed their own churches, schools and communities in Woodland as well as other parts of California. Some of the descendants of both enslaved and free Black people still live in Woodland today.
Partnering With The Woodland Opera House
The display on view in the Woodland Opera House is titled, “The Yolo Singing Club: Freedom, Family and Music.” Featured in the lounge area of the theater, it debuted in fall 2024 during the annual Woodland Stroll Through History event.
The collection includes fire maps of the community’s housing, historic census materials containing rolls of names of residents, Yolo Democrat newspaper articles touting the group’s performances, an enlarged photo of the singing group, their sheet music and old black-and-white photos of church congregations the members attended at that time.
Dated 1903, the photo of the singing group shows young men and women, with men wearing three-piece suits — one in a military uniform — and women dressed in ruffled dresses, skirts and blouses and hats common in that era.
The group performed at the Woodland Opera House and throughout the community. Members of the singing group were members of the Second Christian Church of Woodland. That congregation later became the Second Baptist Church of Woodland, which is still active today, Tsu said.
“The story of this African American ensemble was so rich and intriguing that we felt compelled to share it with the Woodland Opera House community,” Tsu said.
Tom Burmester, executive director of the Woodland Opera House, said he considered the project a way to share the voices and experiences of the people who were part of the Woodland Opera House’s past.
“This project takes a meaningful step toward ensuring our past is remembered in all its complexity — and also helps build a more inclusive legacy for the generations who will make the opera house their creative home,” he said.
Students Take The Project Forward
Connor Chang and Quinn Chapin, who graduated in spring 2025 — each with degrees in English and history — intend to be middle-school teachers. Both said they are even more committed to that path now after getting practice creating and illustrating lesson plans and a digital presentation on this project. With their student colleagues, they later presented their materials to fourth, fifth and sixth graders in Yolo County. Chang converted disparate fire maps and census tracts into readable, attractive graphics for the presentation given by the UC Davis students to schools in Davis, Woodland and Knights Landing. His designs and illustrations were also used in the Woodland Opera House display.
Teaching African American history in local classrooms
To offer a peek into the history of Yolo County’s Black community, Chapin, Chang and Garcia, in a recent spring classroom at Tafoya Elementary School, centered the presentation on Mary Winrow. an enslaved woman and mother of six brought to California from Missouri in 1856 by her enslaver, R.C. Briggs. Although California had already made slavery illegal, there was no punishment for those who held slaves, Chang and Chapin explained to a fourth-grade class.
Winrow was only able to bring two of her younger children, while leaving four others behind until they could be reunited in the 1860s, when slavery was finally outlawed after the Civil War, Chapin told students.
The UC Davis students explained that many in the Singing Club, shown in the presentation, were descendants of Winrow.
Chapin and Chang told students about the early Black community in Woodland and asked questions of wide-eyed, engaged elementary school students.
The fourth graders watched intently as Chapin, Chang and Garcia clicked through slides telling. They were especially moved by the stories about Winrow having to leave behind some of her children in Missouri.
Tsu said that seeing how elementary school students responded to the team’s research confirmed the need to tell diverse histories, as well as the power of local history. She praised her UCD research team:
“The students translated high-level, rigorous historical research into an accessible lesson that still had so much nuance and complexity,” she said. “They learned to teach what we found in the archives to the public and to engage and excite people of all ages about history.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County” is funded by grants from the UC Davis Public Impact Research Initiative and the University of California Humanities Research Institute Engaging Humanities program in partnership with the Yolo County Archives and the California History-Social Science Project.