President Obama visits San Francisco: Leidesdorff Legacy of Green For All

William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. Day "Green Sustainable Development"

Friday October 23, 2009

San Francisco, CA ~ The 199th birthday celebration of William Alexander Leidesdorff Jr. Day prepares for Bicentennial Celebrations.

President Barack Obama will visits San Francisco this week and may embrace the legacy of the Black Jewish founding father of California at Mission Delores, San Francisco.

The City of San Francisco should consider a greater embrace of the legacy of the first City Treasurer, President of the first San Francisco School Board and builder of the first Public School in California.

Mayor Newsom has yet to give his support for celebrating the cultural heritage of the Honorable William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. We know he is busy running for Governor of California.

Northern California Regional Community, political and business leaders will join a lively conversation during our Leidesdorff Day 2009 Business Luncheon.

Our Leidesdorff Day 2009 Business Luncheon guest of honor is Mrs. Joesph Lawson, (Gertrude) surving wife of the leading voice to establish Leidesdorff Plaza by the 1966 Sacramento Negro Museum and Library Association.

Mrs. Lawson remains a source of inspiration as we embrace challenging opportunities embarking on a journey to fulfill the call of to create Leidesdorff Bicentennial Celebrations to honor the legacy of the first Black diplomat in United States history.

William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. was born in St. Croix, Danish Virgin Islands, October 23, 1810. His parents were of African Cuban and Danish Jewish ancestry.

Beginning in Spanish New Orleans, his parents lived there lives together as a married couple under existing Danish law, baptizing all 5 of there children in Trinity Lutheran Church of St. Croix, today's U.S. Virgin Islands.

William was naturalized a U.S. Citizen in 1834 New Orleans and became a successful maritime merchant sailing throughout the Caribbean Basin and Atlantic Coast. The Louisiana Negro Seamen Acts and the mysterious tragic death of his fiance' ended his tenure on Valentine's Day 1838, at the Port of New Orleans.

He completed his final maritime voyage from the Port of New Orleans and sailed to Washington D.C. to clear his good name at the U.S. Treasury Department before heading to the Port of New York in preparation for his relocation to the Pacific Rim.

By Summer of 1841 Leidesdorff busy as the ship master sailing the Julia Ann to Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, California and Alta and Baja Mexico from the Port of San Francisco.

By 1845 he is recognized as the leading financial figure in the development of the Port of San Francisco, later that year he establishes a 35,000 acre Leidesdorff Ranch, which includes much of today's City of Rancho Cordova, Aerojet General, Mather Field, Gold River and the City of Folsom.

Leidesdorff's was recruited to serve as the U.S. Vice Consul because of his honorable business association with U.S. Consul John Coffin Jones, Jr and U.S. Consul Thomas O. Larkin, Jr., of Hawaii and California respectively.

Together they helped facilitate the diplomacy necessary to establish "manifest destiny," a vast government land acquisition, carried by the administration of U.S. President James Polk (1844 -1848.)

The timely recruitment of the first African American Diplomat in U.S. history helped to facilitate the creation of the State of California and his official government reports of California Bear Flag Revolt documents the essential role Sacramento Valley played in establishment of the Western United States.

We believe the establishment of a William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. Bicentennial Commission, by our United States Congress, will carry the mission: to plan, develop and implement such activities as the Commission considers fitting and proper to honor William Alexander Leidesdorff Jr. on the occasion of the 200th Anniversary year of his birth.

The Northern California regional community is invited to join us at the Leidesdorff Day Business Luncheon, Friday, October 23, 2009, 11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m. at the Lake Natoma Inn, 702 Gold Lake Drive, Folsom California.

Special William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr. Day events will one day be embraced throughout the the State of California.