Saturday, May 31, 2008
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Queen Calafia: Ruler of Calfornia
From: John William Templeton

LOS ANGELES -- When John William Templeton first wrote Our Roots Run Deep: the Black Experience in California, Vol. 1 in 1991, the idea of the name of California being derived from a saga of black women warriots was not taken seriously in historical circles.
Through relentless documentation of primary sources and significant public art around the state, the author brought the story of Queen Calafia into the rotunda of the Historic State Capitol Museum by 1995 and was commended during the state's sesquicentennial celebration in 1998.
Now, the learncalifornia.org site maintained by the State Archives states at the beginning of its web page on California symbols "California — The name California is believed to have come from a 16th century Spanish novel about a mythical land inhabited by Amazons and ruled by the beautiful black queen Calafia. The first official mention of California was a July 2, 1542, entry in the diary of Juan Cabrillo as his ship lay at anchor off the coast of Baja California. The term was later applied to Alta California, which became the present state of California on September 9, 1850."
Templeton further brings Queen Calafia to life in collaboration with noted stage and screen actress Ursaline Bryant of Los Angeles and director Robert F. Ellerbee of Fresno in the presentation of a new play Queen Calafia: Ruler of California, being read for the first time in a free presentation May 18, 2008 at 5 p.m. in the William Grant Still Arts Center, 2520 South West View in Los Angeles.
The drama incorporates primary source elements from Templeton's documentary Our Roots Run Deep and his 2005 exhibition Queen Calafia: California Black Heritage Confirmed Through Public Art, also presented at William Grant Still and also pays homage to the late Los Angeles playwright C. Bernard Jackson, who discussed the story of Queen Calafia in a 1984 play Piano Bar.
Bryant, who performed in Jackson's play, stars in the one-woman play. She plays Dr. Wright Now, a conflicted black woman anthropologist from an exclusive woman's college in Los Angeles preparing to present a lecture on the Ming Dynasty in China in the Room of the Dons at San Francisco's Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill to a scholarly conference.
The room contains the nine Maynard Dixon and Frank von Sloun murals depicting Queen Calafia and her warriors welcoming the various peoples who make up California's population.  Bryant's character finds that the walls literally begin talking to her.
Braynt, who has performed such roles as a Starship commander on Startrek: the Next Generation and a doctor on Seinfeld, transforms from the anthropologist to become Queen Calafia.
"Ursaline Bryant is the perfect performer to carry off the many challenges of life in a multicultural society that does not normally recognize the value of African-American heritage and of African-American women, specifically," says Templeton.  "Queen Calafia: Ruler of California tears the scab of race off of American history as well as the California mystique.  We’re not only opening the play in a state whose name honors an allegorical nation populated solely by black women, but in a city where the majority of original settlers were African-American. That these facts are a surprise to most Californians and Angelenos is a door-opener to examining many of the misconceptions which separate Americans from understanding each other."
Queen Calafia inspired Templeton to complete the history of the central role of African-Americans in California history in four volumes reaching into the current millennium. He also penned the section on African-Americans in the West in the Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage to 1895, From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass (OXFORD, 2006) and is currently conducting a study to determine potential historic landmarks of black heritage in San Francisco.
In March, he keynoted the California Council for Social Studies conference in Oakland, noting that the vast majority of the state's teachers are unprepared and unaware of the central role of African-Americans in the state's history, reporting findings from a survey he conducted in school districts around the state. As a result, fewer than 10 percent of the state's African-American students are at proficiency for social studies on state-mandated tests, although educational research indicates that use of such information would be a powerful motivational tool for teachers.

Visit Queencalafia.com for details on the new play Queen Calafia: Ruler of California starring Ursaline Bryant.

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