GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Gettysburg's small African-American community proudly tells stories of ancestors who fought in the Civil War, a young woman who shook President Lincoln's hand and the men who buried thousands of bodies after the battle.
But they also speak of the struggle to preserve their history and of a struggle for equal rights that continued long after the war ended.
Members of the community have been collecting photographs, historical records and oral histories for the museum project that's currently housed in a small temporary space.
One picture shows William Francis Penn, a Gettysburg battlefield guide, posing with a group of well-dressed African-Americans in front of a 1920s auto. Another is of Cecilia Eliza Jane Biggs — who shook Lincoln's hand — in a Victorian dress.
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