Abstract: This essay uses the account of the author’s family migration from northern Alabama to Chicago in the 1930s to consider how adequately archival materials help Black Americans find information about themselves and are subsequently able to ground their family histories into larger narratives. It considers how professional archival practices play a part in the existence and discoverability of Black family records while also showing a vibrant tradition of Black self-documentation. In moving from the South and West Sides of Chicago to Alabama over several decades and centuries, the essay follows the author as she confronts the relative scarcity of records of everyday people during the Great Migration and delves into the complexity of Black American lineage and Black archival records in the wake of enslavement.
Sumayya Ahmed (Sun,) studied this question.