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This collection contains a photo album containing fifteen original black-and-white photographs from the 1960s of a birthday celebration of a young Black girl and her family.Exceptional depiction of an 11 year old's birthday party with all of it's innocence, happiness and absence of the racial world that lives outside the doors of their grandmother's nice home.The children are wearing cone hats and there is dancing, presents, game playing, a birthday cake, blowing out candles, and an abundance of playfulness.The photographs, 3.25" x 3.25", are in plastic sleeves in a contemporary square, spiral-bound, blue leatherette album.

This collection contains four programs and eight photographs documenting mid-twentieth-century African American life in Roanoke and Wytheville, Virginia. Two programs for Debutante Balls hosted by "The Altruists," a club for Black women in Roanoke, are dated 1954 and 1977. The Altruist Club program for 1954 has "Stella Ednise Miller" in blue ink on the cover. A 1958 pamphlet for a Virginia Congress Colored P.T.A. annual work conference held at Scott Memorial School in Wytheville discusses "The P.T.A. Role in Fields of Education and Community." A program for the Lucy Addison High School Choir's annual Christmas concert is dated 1964. Eight undated printed photographs range in subject matter. Six photographs that are in color feature children sightseeing, a man seated with two children, a museum visit, a woman standing alongside two children, a boy smiling, and a woman smiling. Two photos in black and white feature four Black men in suits exchanging greetings, and a group of young Black children posed in rows with their names written in ink on the photograph.

This collection contains ninety-eight photographs of African American children and families at home and play from about the 1950s to the 1990s. Measurements range from 6" X 4" to 2" X 2" inches and are in color and black and white. Several subjects recur throughout the archive. All are unidentified; only three have any annotations on the back. The photographed figures, primarily children but some family shots included, are captured within their homes or playing outside. Activities include playing, swimming, posing, and celebrating holidays and special occasions.

This collection contains three photographs with captions on the verso, "Black children and men taken in or near New Orleans." These images were taken "en route" to New Orleans, possibly from a train, in the 1930s. One photograph shows a group of young boys on a street with an inscription on the reverse that says "New Orleans." Another depicts three boys and one older man singing on train tracks with an inscription that reads "En Route to New Orleans/ Kids singing." The last is a photograph of three boys tumbling on train tracks, with the inscription "En route to New Orleans/ scrambling for money." The photographs are black and white gelatin silver measuring 3 x 5.5 inches

This collection contains four black and white photographs (roughly trimmed to 8 x 10 inches or slightly larger) featuring Florynce 'Flo' Kennedy (1916-2000) speaking. Kennedy was an American lawyer, feminist, and activist who founded the Feminist Party in 1971. Each photograph is stamped in red ink with the Examiner Reference Library. The stamps are dated 1973-1976. Three photos include a newspaper clipping of the same image pasted onto the verso, with "Examiner" captioning the photo and including photo credits including Paul Gines, Lynott, and Teresa Zabaia. One picture is stamped with a caption on the verso: "Flo Kennedy at Hookers Convention."

This collection contains a single black-and-white photograph of Langston Hughes, noted American poet and leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

This collection contains an albumen photograph of a Union wagon camp in Virginia during the Civil War from the Washington D.C. studio of Mathew Brady. Brady was one of the earliest and most famous photographers in American history. He is best known for his scenes of the Civil War. He often photographed Black soldiers and laborers during the war, mostly in Union or contraband camps. The present image documents for posterity a number of Black soldiers and laborers working towards a Union victory in the Civil War, a watershed moment in the history for African American people.

This collection contains the manuscript ledger book, "Record of Deaths" kept by Thomas H. Brown's Funeral Home, 301 Gill Street, Petersburg, Virginia. This book detailed the funerals of approximately 500 African Americans during the last years of the Great Depression. The volume opens with a twenty-four page alphabetical index, listing the names of the deceased persons with the number of the page for further information about their funerals. Entries for each funeral appear in chronological order.

The collection MSS 16920 contains the Tinsley, Edwards, Rich family history (1795; 1820-1978) written by William George Rich III (1905-1988) about his great-great grandfather who called himself William Tinsley (born into enslavery in 1795,and freed in 1820), his great grandparents Nelson and Lauren Broady Tinsley, (an indigenous woman) and his grandparents Charles Robert Tinsley (1851-1919) and Betty Edwards Tinsley (1855-1924) (daughter of an indigenous woman Malinda Edwards)and their eight grandchildren (William George Rich III and his 7 cousins) who lived on their own land in Amherst, Virginia. The collection is remarkable in the amount of detail that is provided about a prosperous African American family living during Jim Crow laws. Charles Robert Tinsley was the owner of a livery stable and built a house for his children, grandchildren and his parents, Nelson and Lauren Tinsley.