Joe Moore, retired photographer, is shedding light on California’s contradictory history.

With a 132k dollar grant administered by the state library, Joe, librarians and archivists are gathering letters, family documents, court records, songs and photographs, about 800 documents, for an internet archive about slavery in California – the state that likes to think it entered the union “free” in 1850.

We believe this is one of America’s lost stories,” said Guy Washington, regional coordinator for the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom project, who has worked closely with Moore.

It is an archaeological project to manifest the past.