Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
The Oak Park community on July 13 honored the life and work of Callie Carney, the first Black female member of the Sacramento City Council.
Carney, who passed away Nov. 4, served on the City Council for District 5 from 1975-1977.
The event held the day after what would have been her 89th birthday featured live music from United Voices of California, live dancers and an activity area for small children that brought youthful energy to the celebration.
After Carney passed away, District 5 Councilmember Caity Maple wanted to honor her service to the community, said Mary Nance, Carney’s daughter.
Nance said her mother was a champion for Oak Park, fighting to ensure funding and services came to a part of the city often overlooked.
Nance said this will become an annual event honoring Black trailblazers.
“We would like to tell our own stories of the history of Oak Park and if we don’t tell our stories, they’re not going to be told or they’re not going to be told correctly,” Nance told The OBSERVER.
Local activist and chair of the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign Faye Wilson Kennedy, who worked on Carney’s campaign, sat in the park listening to gospel music and enjoying the relatively cooler weather.
“She always made sure Oak Park had a voice at the table. She spoke from the heart and she didn’t mind ruffling feathers,” Wilson Kennedy said.
Carney served her community in several capacities. She was executive director of the Women’s Civic Improvement Club from 1981-1996, a charter member of the Sacramento Valley Section of the National Council of Negro Women, and was involved with the Greater Sacramento Urban League and the Sacramento NAACP.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he wished he could have served with Carney because everything that he has read and heard of her, is what “we need more of in this community and country.”
“Callie believed in community, she believed in Oak Park, she believed that the job of all of us … is to help uplift people who have been too often left out and left behind,” Steinberg told the crowd of about 50 people.
“It’s on us to remember what others did to pave the way, and that’s Councilmember Carney.”