Today’s Blog is written by Barbara Lewis Burger, a retired National Archives Still Picture Senior Archivist. A significant percentage of African Americans lived in rural communities until the middle of the 20th century. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 1900, the black population was slightly more than 8.8 million or 11.6% of the U.S. … Continue reading Family, Farming, and Community: Photographs of African American Life in Putnam County, Georgia in 1941
Today’s blog is written by Dr. Jametta Davis, Appraisal Archivist at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The Great Depression was one of the most devastating economic periods of the twentieth century. Between 1929 and the early 1940s, countless American citizens experienced high unemployment rates, increased poverty, and great uncertainty. For black girls and … Continue reading Providing a New Deal for Young Black Women: Mary McLeod Bethune and the Negro Affairs Division of the NYA
Today’s blog is written by Dr. Tina L. Ligon, Archivist at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland Black women have a long history of work in the United States. They have toiled in hot fields, cared for other people’s children, cleaned homes, worked in factories, taught in poorly funded schools, and held numerous professional … Continue reading I too, am Rosie
Ida B. Wells was among many individuals whose letters bombarded the Department of Justice demanding Federal help to fight racial violence. These letters are found among Year Files, 1884 1903 (National Archives Identifier 578368) located in RG 60, General Records of the Department of Justice (DOJ). This file consists of many letters, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and telegrams … Continue reading Ida B. Wells-Barnett Takes Crusade Against Racial Violence to the President
