INTRIGUING LOCAL HISTORIAN
Alexandria Brown has always loved history, not necessarily and wars and kingdoms, but rather people and cultures. A year as a research librarian at the Napa County Historical So the Napa local, Masters of Library and Information Science, and a of Hidden History of Napa Valley and Lost Restaurants of Napa Valley and Their Recipes, went back to school for a second masters i History, with a focus on Black history in California, specifically B history in Napa County. “All the local history I knew was mostly a white men,” said Brown. “Finding hundreds of Black people who li and thrived and built lives and businesses in Napa was what re gave me a love for local history.” Suddenly, the county in which sh grown-up felt like home. “Even though the Black people living Napa in the 19th and early 20th century weren’t my blood relation. I still felt a kinship for them,” said Brown, whose mother was the first Black female pilot employed by Bridgeford Flying Service a Napa County Airport. “Napa County, as it is today, would not exist without the contributions of BIPOC, women, immigrants, and a other marginalized communities. Our voices are often silenced, but we are as much a part of the foundation of this world-famous region as the white men whose names everyone knows. I want people to understand that the history they think they know isn’t the whole picture. Understanding our past and acknowledging the truth of it – the good parts and the bad – can help us shape a better future.”
Article By: Fran Miller
