Your History, Our History—A Preservation Project:
Building a photographic collection for Scranton’s African American Community
Bethel A.M.E. Church Tom Thumb Wedding, early 1950s. Scranton, Pa. (image courtesy of Anthracite Heritage Museum)
Black Scranton Project is seeking to collect ANY photographs of the black community—past or present.
Documentation of the black experience in Scranton is important; not only today but for future generations and those looking to trace and connect their roots back to Scranton. It is imperative to see activities and traditions that were once central to our community. It helps people connect to the place where they live and appreciate what things were like in the past. Additionally, these narratives can be used to to extract important contextual data which could ultimately be potential leads to existing historical documentation.
Take the image above for instance: A beautiful portrait of children participating in a Tom Thumb wedding hosted by Bethel A.M.E. Chruch—one of the foundational pillars to Scranton’s Black Community.
We encourage you to comment, and share this photo. We would like to identify these children, who are now many years into adulthood. Some of these folks may still reside in the Scranton area. For that reason we would love to a first hand reminiscence to this photograph.
Send us your photos !
If you have any photographs that might be meaningful to this collection, we would love to add your contributions. Please email us info@blackscranton.com or call 570-871-0539. All donors will be given credit everywhere images will be showcased. The hope is to have a robust collection to add to the Lackawanna Digital Archives in 2019.
