One of my favorite books for African American Research at the National Archives is Deborah Newman Ham’s book Black History a Guide to Civilian Records at the National Archives. The wonderful news is that it is now available online at Google Books. You can read it as well as download it.
The goal of the book is to make it easier to discover records of interest to your research. The National Archives is a massive depository, and not easily transversed even by the seasoned researcher. Here, Newman helps to expose the Black history in the records of the federal government. Since the Emancipation Proclamation the federal government has had a large presence in the lives of African Americans. Thus their collection is a great source to uncover the lives of our ancestors.
The records at the National Archives are arranged by record group. Each record group is generally the paperwork of a single or multiple government agencies. This book is also arranged by record group. Here is a page from Record Group 35, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corp.
When I called to check on pictures for the camp in my area, which was for Blacks only, they had about 44 pictures available. Cousin Floyd and I are trying to coordinate our schedules to hop the Amtrak to Union Station, then to NARA College Park, where the Civilian Records. Did you know that the Archives in College Park is the largest in the world?
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