The Golden Ghosts Film

The Golden Ghost film is an Art film, a Black film, a Western with moments of Magical Realism all based on actual historical events.
In 1852, a lone Black woman trudges barefoot along a dry riverbed in Siskiyou County, watched by two Black men in the trees. She seems indifferent to the spectacular beauty around her, near the base of Mount Shasta. “There’s a lot of purpose in those legs,” one of the men remarks. They assume she is looking for gold, as they are, but conclude that the important thing is what she and they are walking towards. Freedom
It’s the opening scene of an hour-long movie, “The Golden Ghosts,” the latest work by Mt. Shasta artist and filmmaker Mark Oliver’s project to recover the forgotten history of African Americans’ participation in the California Gold Rush. His 2022 book “Voices of the Golden Ghosts” started with the faintest of clues – old Census rolls, derogatory names given to long-abandoned diggings – to tell the stories of many for whom the scramble for riches was also a struggle, against daunting odds, for freedom. Shot in Northern California the story follows two African American men who arrived in California around 1852 hoping to find gold and improve their lives. The prospectors call themselves Tall (Victor Martin) and Money (Fred Magee). They know their situation is precarious, even though California was admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state. Racist judges and legislators have let Southern slaveholders bring their “property” west, and the same sort of bounty hunters who enslave Indian children would be happy to return Tall and Money, who lack “papers,” back to bondage.
Shot as a historical fiction work, this film is an educational production examining for the first time for most viewers the history of African American people in the California Gold Rush. Watch until the end as the contemporary reality of this untold history is revealed.