The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently digitized an unusual census record that documents the residence of Black persons in Princess Anne County, Virginia, in 1863. Digital images can be viewed online at “Census o...
The court system has historically been one of the many ways Black Americans have fought for equal rights in the United States. These cases span the history of the United States, beginning well before the Civil Rights Era of the mid-twentieth century ...
Subject Matter Expert (SME) - Civil Rights Blog #8:
The Department of Justice’s "Lynching Files", Straight Numeric File Number 158260
Ray Bottorff Jr
The 1890s saw an explosion in white on black racial lynchings. As the 20th Century ...
In a previous blog, I described how my initial research into my maternal lineage revealed some important information that I had not been aware of up to that point. I knew that my mother’s side of the family has deep roots in the state of Georgi...
Subject Matter Expert (SME) - Civil Rights Blog #6:
Records Regarding Lynching and Anti-Lynching Efforts in the National Archives
Ray Bottorff Jr
On February 28, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 422 to 3 followed by the U.S. Senate on M...
Subject Matter Expert (SME) - Civil Rights Blog #5:
Searching for Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Records of the National Archives
Ray Bottorff Jr
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a pivotal figure in civil rights in America and human rights around t...
Other than the service of Black veterans in the Union armed forces during the Civil War, the work of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) represents the federal government’s earliest and most exten...
NARA’s reference staff often receive inquiries from researchers and genealogists seeking records that document the nation’s history of slavery and slaveholding. Most of these researchers hope to get beyond “the wall” of 1870 (...
The National Archives holds many records related to African American history, culture, and heritage, and we also have many resources that can help researchers both discover and access those records. If you’re interested in researching a topic r...
This is from a blog post by Tina Ligon...In celebration of the March 2017 grand opening of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor’s Center, the National Archives joins the National Park Service in presenting a panel discussion examinin...
From the Summer 2007 issue of "Prologue" - Pre-Bureau Records and Civil War African American GenealogySince this article appeared, many of the Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Record Group 105) have been digitized....
During Black History Month, we look at the impact that African-Americans have had on our history and celebrate those who have become icons.The Civilian Personnel Records branch of the NPRC watched an American Experience film about the famous Olympic ...
Sharing a link to NARA historian Jessie Kratz's introductory post to a series this month at the Prologue blog, Celebrating Black History Month | Prologue: Pieces of History. As a historian, I appreciate how Jessie first effectively places histo...
A series of occasional posts, where we let our former colleagues "tell their story". My story? Well, a lot of it is about getting things from here to there. I was born in Atlanta, and then our family moved to Kansa...