Rev. Jeremiah King founder of the African Baptist Church, Stockton, California

The City of Stockton, California, once again is designated an All-American City 2015, together we will rise like a phoenix from the challenges of bankruptcy and consider the amazing golden legacy of the early founding fathers of African ancestry.

Our Sesquicentennial Celebration of Freedom continues the legacy with a request for equity and equal opportunity within Block 27 ~ Stockton Rural Cemetery a salient community resource, part of the broader proposed Mervyn M. Dymally Commission identifying, documenting and preserving the contributions by people of African Ancestry to the State of California.

Etymology studies the origin of words and how historical meanings have changed over time. The Germanic word frei, thought to mean outside of the fundal system, “beloved, friend, to love, clear of obstruction; sense of unrestrained movement” has a very different historical context from the unspoken and taboo conversation about “Chattel Slavery in the State of California.”

What is freedom to someone not considered a human being? Chattel slavery called property a “slave”, not considered an “enslaved human being” thus this salient distinction remains the unspoken value and belief challenged in the current, “Black Lives Matter” assertion.

In 1803, Reverend Jeremiah King was reportedly born in the low country of Georgia and his amazing life ended July 1, 1883 and his body was laid to rest within Block 27~Stockton Rural Cemetery.

Interestingly, young Jeremiah spent nearly half a century enslaved in the State of Georgia, the southern most of the 13 English colonies prior to the America Revolution, the only American Colony to originally expressly prohibit the enslavement of people of African ancestry.

Georgia was originally claimed as part of the Spanish Mission System, the costal Port of Savannah, GA aligned with St. Augustine, FL and the southern ports of Mobile, AL and New Orleans, LA with New Spain headquarters in Havana, Cuba.

The economic bonanza of “free labor” “enslaved human beings” from the West Coast of West Africa, today’s Gambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone, utilized specialized skills to produce the highly profitable commodities of “indigo and rice” along the low county of Georgia and the Carolinas, prior to the invention of the cotton gin and King Cotton.
The unique West African agricultural production methods facilitated retention of ancient African culture within the Gullah/Geeche traditions we see in the legacy and profound contributions to the State of California by Rev. Jeremiah King.

By 1849, Jeremiah King and his wife are given freedom papers, gold and passage to migrate from bowels of “chattel slavery in the deep south” to join the California Gold Rush at Monterey, California.

Prior to California Statehood, September 9, 1850, Jeremiah King struck it rich in the southern gold mining district and settled in San Joaquin County purchasing over 100 acres of land near today City of Lathrop and a full square block in the Historic Stockton Waterfront District.

It is recorded that “often” Rev. Jeremiah King and his wife would travel to 40 miles to Sacramento to worship GOD and beginning September 1854 the African Baptist Church of Stockton was organized, hosting weekly services for the remainder of his life.

In 1859, Rev. King successfully petitioned the founding father of the City of Stockton, Captain Weber, for church property on W.Washington St. between Commence and Beaver Street to relocate the purchased church building from Rev. James Woods of the Presbyterian Church of Stockton.

During the US Civil War, Rev. Jeremiah King successfully petitioned the Trustees of the Stockton Rural Cemetery to establish a Section 27, “a colored section” as the final resting place for people of African ancestry.

150 years ago, the U.S. Civil War ended with the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse. Juneteenth, our symbolic end of “chattel slavery” in America, was facilitated by Major General Granger at the Port of Galveston Island, Texas with heavy enforcement by several regiments of US Colored Troops. Finally, the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution legally ended “chattel slavery” throughout the United States of America and we all should celebrate the journey to form a more perfect union.

In Stockton, California the amazing contributions by people of African ancestry to the ongoing journey towards freedom, remains an open secret, hidden with the grave markers of Block 27 ~ Stockton Rural Cemetery.

January 1, 1866, an Emancipation Day Celebration was a city-wide effort featured a grand parade through Downtown Stockton with speeches and festivities enjoyed by all.

Our ongoing Sesquicentennial Celebration of Freedom seeks to remove separate and unequal care, equity and equal opportunity seen at Block 27-Stockton Rural Cemetery. We will erect a fitting formal grave marker for Rev. Jeremiah King while researching, documenting and preserving the authentic history.

The doors of the original African Baptist Church of Stockton are spiritually open, we are asking for your assistance and support, in the Baptist tradition we ask,
Is their one? Is their one? Is their one?

Sesquicentennial Celebration of Freedom ~ Emancipation Day Celebration January 1, 2016, we will build a brighter future for the City of Stockton, California by remembering and celebrating Rev. Jeremiah King, by identifying, documenting and preserving the community contributions of those interred within Block 27-Stockton Rural Cemetery.