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= 1865 California State Convention of Colored Citizens = The 1865 California State Convention of Colored Citizens was held in Sacramento, California in the Bethel A.M.E. Church from October 25th-28th 1865. This was the fourth California State convention over a ten year period with different issues brought up each time. The 1865 convention had many speeches addressed to the citizens of California and the state government calling for the equal treatment of black citizens under the law and in society, as was dictated by the events following the end of the American Civil War. The conventions created a way for Black Californians to combat the political changes they went through as the State's government progressed, and the 1865 one helped them strategize ways to progress even further with the aide of the new political and social climate after the Civil War and the newly Republican run state.

Committees and Members
Business Committee: J. J. Moore, W.H. Hall, E. P. Duplex, E. A Clark, R.H. Small.

Education Committee: W. H. Hall, T. M. D. Ward, P. A. Bell.

Elective Franchise Committee: R. A. Hall, W. H. Yates, D. W. Ruggles, E. P. Duplex, J. R. Starkey.

Industrial Pursuits Committee: T. M. D. Ward, E. E. Parker, J. Madden, B. Campbell, Wm. H. Harper, E. P. Hilton, J. P. Dyer.

Statistics Committee: J. R. Starkey, Dr. Bryant, M. L. Rogers.

Finance Committee: W. H. Harper, W. H. Christopher, E. W. Parker, R. F. Shorter, R. A. Hall.

Public Morals Committee: Revs. J. H. Hubbard, J. J. Moore, P. Kellingworth.

General report of Main Committees
Though all the committees did break off and plan things, the education, business, and elective franchise committees ended up making the biggest reports and were a larger focus for the conventions as a whole.

The Education Committee: This committee had a longer history in their focus on equal opportunity for education of black children, as it was a focus of the California State Conventions since the first convention in 1855. In this convention, the committee made plans to purchase San Jose school grounds and establish a high school through a  $1 tax for every black person in the state of California, which at that point was at around 4,000 people. This would provide a better place for Black children to have an education, given the lack of proper buildings at the time.

The Business Committee: This committee advised Black citizens to stay strong and try to make as much wealth and have as good of an education as possible. The idea was to expand Black people's employment into higher paying jobs and integrate them more into educated society. Additional committees across the state were also proposed to further the ideas promoted in the convention and get smaller communities involved.

The Elective Franchise Committee: This committee made a letter to the government to rightfully treat them equally under the law as Lincoln had dictated before his passing. In general, there was a lot of stress on the importance of voting and getting better representation in local government and the right to vote, given that slavery was abolished in the 13th amendment earlier that same year.

Participation of Women
There were several mentions of women, or their participation in general. One instance was when several women from the Siloam Baptist Church raised funds for the church through a fruit festival, and used the convention as a platform to publicize their fundraising efforts and promote attendance of the festival. The other was at the end of the proceedings, when the leaders of the convention thanked the women from Sacramento that had chosen to attend the convention, even though they were given no formal voice in the proceedings.

Bethel A.M.E. Church
Now called St. Andrew's African Methodist Episcopal Church, the church held three out of the four colored citizens conventions for the state of California and was the first Black church in the state. It became a center for Black political action within the state, with many prominent spiritual and political leaders coming out of it.