Historian, author, and actor fights to tell stories of historical women, regardless of their race

When San Diego native Annette Hubbell retired in 2007, she traded in her long career in water management—but not her energy, ambition, or principles. Her interest in history blossomed while visiting Gettysburg with her husband as part of an East Coast tour of historical sites. They stayed at a small place on Gettysburg’s South Battlefield that held Civil War reenactments for visitors. “I was just mesmerized by it,” recalls Annette. She began writing and acting and eventually formed her own production company to showcase historical characters through theatrical performances. 

Later, Annette published Eternity through the Rearview Mirror: How Simple Faith Changes Everything—Seventeen Extraordinary Lives, her 2019 book featuring first-person accounts of 17 historical figures who transformed themselves and changed the world. She then adapted her book into a one-woman play called Women Warriors and has since brought to life dynamic women such as Sojourner Truth, Corrie ten Boom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and Mary McLeod Bethune for audiences across the country. 

In December 2023, the manager of the San Diego County Library’s Rancho Santa Fe branch asked Annette to perform Women Warriors the following March. The manager specifically requested that Annette portray Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Harriet Tubman.

But just two weeks before the scheduled performance, the branch manager asked Annette to change her show by removing the two black historical figures—Tubman and Bethune. The manager’s stated reason was simply, “Our administration was uncomfortable with you performing a black character as a white woman.” The manager asked Annette to replace these women with white historical figures. 

When Annette asked whether she could “only honor women of courage and integrity if they’re white,” a library supervisor confirmed, “That’s pretty much it.”  

Annette refused to change her performance based on the library’s racial criteria, so the library canceled her show entirely. Annette’s follow-up questions about the library’s policy and discriminatory treatment she suffered ultimately led the library director, Migell Acosta, to double down on the decision in writing.  

Annette feels exasperated by this reasoning. In her many years of performing these characters, there has never been a hint of offense, even from anonymous surveys. 

“How could we ever explore our common humanity with these kinds of restrictions?” she asks. 

Indeed, government entities cannot deny opportunities to individuals based on race. The San Diego library’s race-based decision-making violates the very protections against such discrimination written into the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Civil Rights Act. Given that Annette’s performance was under contract, the library also violated California’‘s constitutional prohibition on race discrimination in public contracting. 

While libraries have discretion over programming, decisions cannot be based on a performer’‘s race. The ability to respectfully portray historical figures should not be limited by the color of a storyteller’s skin. 

In selecting historical figures to portray, the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King guide Annette, as she chooses figures for “the content of their character.” She does not choose them for their station in life, gender, or ethnicity. Under both the state and federal Constitutions, the library must do the same. 

Represented at no charge by Pacific Legal Foundation, Annette is fighting back with a federal lawsuit to restore equal opportunity for everyone to participate in the arts, regardless of race or any other characteristics they cannot control.