Sacramento’s Florin Square Celebrates Black History with Weeklong Exhibit

Sacramento’s Black history took center stage at Florin Square this month as the Council of Elders Metro Sacramento debuted a new exhibit celebrating generations of local leadership, achievement and cultural impact.

Titled “Past, Present & Future,” the weeklong exhibit ran Feb. 9-15 at Florin Square, widely known as Sacramento’s Black Wall Street Plaza. The showcase featured more than 80 individuals and organizations representing decades of achievement, leadership and cultural impact throughout the region.

“Black history is celebrated all over the world, especially in February, but Sacramento has its own powerful Black history,” said Gregory King, chair of the organizing committee. “We have to take ownership of how our history is taught.”

The exhibit highlighted trailblazers in politics, military service, sports, arts and education.

In politics, it recognized Lauren Hammond as the first Black woman elected to the Sacramento City Council and Kevin Johnson as the city’s first Black mayor.

Also featured was Valarie Pitts, a Sacramento native who retired from the U.S. military as a master sergeant. During the Bush administration, Pitts served in the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she arranged travel for the president of the United States, including aboard Air Force One.

Norman Blackwell, 92, was celebrated not only for his longevity in baseball but for his decades of impact in Sacramento’s Oak Park community. A former semi-professional player who was twice offered a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Blackwell chose to build his legacy at home. He played more than 50 years of competitive baseball and senior softball and coached generations of youth through Oak Park Little League. The baseball fields at McClatchy Park now bear his name, honoring a lifetime dedicated to the game and the community he helped shape.

The exhibit also honored descendants of the Tuskegee Airmen who now reside in the Sacramento area, preserving the legacy of the pioneering Black military aviators. It recognized community leaders such as Dorothy Benjamin, a cultural champion who helped organize the Black Culture Day exhibit at the California State Fair.

Looking toward the future, organizers included a current 12th-grade student who first auditioned for the Sacramento Youth Symphony in seventh grade. The student was not only selected but later named concertmaster — an early sign of the talent rising within Sacramento’s Black community.

King said turnout and reaction exceeded expectations.

“We expected a good response, but we got more than we ever hoped for,” he said. “Older community members came in and you could hear the ‘oohs’ as they recognized their teachers, neighbors and hometown heroes. What we wanted to give the community, we received back many times over.”

The exhibit was the culmination of months of planning and community input.

The Council of Elders does not plan to confine the exhibit to Black History Month. King said requests have already come from other locations across Sacramento interested in hosting the display.

The exhibit was hosted in partnership with the Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum and the Florin Square Community Development Corporation, reinforcing a shared commitment to preserving and amplifying Sacramento’s Black history for generations to come.