AFROLUMENS

"Slavery In Pennsylvania," the original database of Pennsylvania slaveholders and slaves--the Internet ancestor of the Afrolumens Project--was born in 1992 as a personal collection of newspaper clippings, Xeroxed magazine and journal articles, and handwritten transcriptions of dusty county documents. It was my response to history class. It was gritty and unpleasant, full of unsavory characters making bad choices and exhibiting human behavior. It also had a cast of hitherto ignored characters described in archaic terms such as "wench," "yellow," "colored," "negress" and "molatress." It was all about human beings, and it was all new to me... The Afrolumens Project chronicles the history of Central Pennsylvania's African American community.

Primary location: Harrisburg United States