African Americans -- Southern States

Abstract

This collection includes meeting minutes, 1913-1940, copies of the organization's newsletter, 1958-1972, miscellaneous newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, and correspondence, a few rosters, and papers relating to admitting African Americans to the association, 1949-1950.

Scope and Contents Eleven documents dated between September 14, 1863, and January 21, 1864, related to the conscripted labor and death of Martin, an enslaved man, and the evaluations and repayment to Thomas W. Chiles, a slaveowner. Martin, 24 years old, was conscripted by the Confederate government to build earthworks at a strategic location on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. Provided out of obligation to the Confederate Army, Martin suffered intensive labor and poor, disease-ridden conditions that caused...

Scope and Contents This collection consists of a single circular letter issued by the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Office of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia, dated October 2, 1867. The letter, authored by F.D. Sewall, Acting Assistant Adjutant General, was originally written in Washington, D.C., on September 16, 1867, and directed to Bvt. Brig. Gen. C.C. Sibley. The document mandates local authorities in Georgia to provide aid to all impoverished individuals,...

Scope and Contents

This document is a letter from Calvin Rice, a Union soldier from Massachusetts, to a family member, Oscar Rice. Written while stationed on Edisto Island, South Carolina, the letter provides firsthand insights into one of the main colonies of escaped formerly enslaved individuals during the Civil War. The letter offers a perspective on the role of Union soldiers in occupied Southern territories and the experiences of freed people during the war.

Abstract

The collection includes one photographic album documenting a trip through the Deep South. The album includes eighty black-and-white silver gelatin photographs from a trip through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas in 1935 and 1936. Of particular interest are approximately twenty images depicting African Americans in the rural South.