The Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville State University, River Jordan Council on African American Heritage and Cumberland County Schools are seeking volunteers for the largest crowdsourcing project sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute. The project’s goal is to help share the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project.
The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has worked with the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission and the State Library of North Carolina to shine a light on a hidden part of history in the Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. The U.S. Congress established the Bureau in 1865 to aid formerly enslaved African Americans in their transition to freedom and citizenship, provide food, clothing and temporary shelter to the formerly enslaved and white refugee populations and manage abandoned lands. Records from the Bureau have been preserved by the National Archives but are currently not easily accessible.
This cooperative effort between federal, state and local museums, libraries and other organizations focuses on the modern accessible preservation of these nearly two million records. They are being transcribed through the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project to make them completely searchable online. This effort will increase the historical knowledge of the Reconstruction Era.
The Cumberland County Public Library will host events and invites the public to help transcribe the records relating to Cumberland County virtually on June 14 and 16 from 3 to 6 p.m. and July 13 from 3 to 6 p.m.
To register for an event please email 
.