This film spotlights Sacramento's Virna M. Canson, hailed by the NAACP and the Black press as "Mother of Civil Rights in the West." It premiered on Mother's Day 2024 -
Mrs. Canson was born and raised in Oklahoma and attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where she met her husband Clarence Canson of Sacramento. They moved to California in 1940 - and Mrs. Canson began volunteering at Sacramento's NAACP Chapter and later managed its credit union - making housing and other loans available to minorities during the era of redlining.
She also led the fight to integrate workforces at local companies such as Safeway, Pacific Bell and Campbell Soup. In 1967, Mrs. Canson became one of the first Black lobbyists at the State Capitol - where she successfully fought to save California's Fair Housing Act. She eventually rose to become the director of the NAACP's West Region from 1974-1988, the first fully-appointed woman at the helm - leading 30,000 members in 220 chapters spanning nine states.
During that time, she also spearheaded a preservation effort to save hundreds of thousands of the NAACP's historical documents - creating one of the largest collections of civil rights material in the West. When she passed away in 2003, journalist Vernon Jarrett noted: "Of all those who have helped make Black America great that most people don't know about, she is one of the most unheralded of the unheralded."
This film is produced by Chris Lango through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sacramento Office of Arts and Culture.
SPECIAL THANKS
Faythe Canson Clark
Sacramento Observer/Larry Lee, Publisher
Roietta Fulgham
Dr. Nate White
Alyssa Marie Garcia
Clarence Caesar
Center for Sacramento History - KCRA/KOVR Collections
Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
African-American Library and Museum at Oakland
Sacramento Public Library - James Scott
KQED Television, San Francisco - Robert Chehoski
Bay Area Television News Archive - Alex Cherian
California State Library Newspaper Archive
Nathaniel Colley Sr. Civil Rights Coalition
Dr. Jesus Hernandez
Dr. Alfred Brown
#civilrights #sacramento #virnacanson