Help Rescue & Restore Black Civil War Veterans' History At Risk
Emergency archival search and rescue mission
Some of the most valuable stories of Black life, love, survival & resistance are sitting in miles of boxes—fragile, threatened, and largely unknown. These irreplaceable archives of Civil War Soldiers who served in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) are housed in the National Archives. The vast majority are not digitized. Not online. Not searchable. They are not safe.
In the current political landscape, efforts to suppress and erase honest histories in public works and education are rapidly intensifying. The threat to these irreplaceable records is real and immediate. If we don't act now to locate, scan, and secure these records, we risk losing access—or losing the history forever.
The goal is to save as many veterans as possible in the time we have, while building secure & open archives to share these cultural assets widely and tell stories freely.
Join me in raising emergency funds for my lifelong friend & colleague Rachael Keri Williams, with volunteer community archivists to lead a USCTs data rescue mission. Money raised directly supports out-of-pocket costs for travel, lodging, food, & digital archival expenses. No salaries or nonprofit operating costs will be paid through this fund.
These Civil War Veterans' records contain some of the only surviving first-person accounts & artifacts of 19th-century Black soldiers, their families, communities, and social networks:
→ Testimonies from widows, children, and loved ones.
→ Midwives' affidavits about the birth of Black soldiers' children.
→ Letters from neighbors, coworkers & community elders
→ Traces of Black family life—before, during, and after slavery.
→ Proof of residence, migration, kinship networks
→ Official military & service records
These aren’t just records. They are evidence of life and resistance.
Why I’m Asking for Your Help
I’m starting this GoFundMe because the truth is: this work can’t happen without broadening support. My friend and colleague, Rachael Keri Williams, founded SavingOurAncestorsLegacy (SOAL) in 2021 and has been leading public history & genealogical research unpaid for years. What funds are raised have gone into saving one of the country's oldest historic African American cemeteries. She has poured her heart, her labor, and her family’s own limited financial resources into the creative restoration of Black History. Recovering stories forgotten & erased, sharing public history freely, while living in or at the edge of poverty.
This USCTs data rescue mission cannot happen without financial support. SOAL has a small but growing network of volunteers.
I donate to SOAL. I volunteer my time every week. I help where I can. But the scale of this mission is bigger than any one of us. We need resources. We need community. We need you.
All funds raised will directly support the costs on volunteers to rescue & recover USCTs archives —covering travel to Washington, DC, lodging, food, archival technology, and preservation expenses for this data rescue mission. The gfm campaign will support individual & team costs, not nonprofit operations. The aim is to empower people with the data & tools needed to launch rapid, decentralized, community-led digitization & restoration of American history.
Have a USCT Pension Record? Let’s Connect.
If you —or your family, group, organization, church, historical society, or community archive— have United States Colored Troops (USCT) Civil War veterans’ pension file numbers that need rescuing, we want to hear from you!
SOAL is building a community archive to make sure every soldier’s story has a chance to be recovered, preserved, & returned.
We have a growing list of USCTs Veterans Pension File Numbers that we’re actively recovering — starting with a subset of soldiers in the under-researched 45th Co. Regiment — but we are committed to expanding the search to include as many soldiers’ records as possible, based on available funding and access. Locating the pension file number(s) can be a long journey in of itself...
What We Can Do:
→ Search for pension file numbers you share with us
→ Strategize & support the retrieval of your Veterans' Pension File #s
→ Prioritize digitizing USCTs records (as funds & access allow)
→ Share copies with descendants, families, and the public
→ Connect your story to a growing community memory project
→ Collaborate on public storytelling and remembrance
Looking to Collaborate? We are seeking:
-Partners & Funders ready to mobilize
-Descendant families & organizations with Veterans to rescue
-Churches & cemeteries with USCT burials, records & descendants
-Veterans groups & supporters
-Local history & genealogy researchers
-Archivists & public history organizations
Anyone interested who wants to help!
Ways to Give:
Like many grassroots projects, I am using GoFundMe to make this campaign accessible and immediate. Once sufficient minimum viable funds are raised to cover travel & lodging costs, Rachael and volunteers mustered will head to DC.
If you prefer to donate directly to SOAL SavingOurAncestorsLegacy (501c3 nonprofit organization), you can give via:
→ Cash App: $SOALlife
→ direct link: $SOALlife
→ SOAL's PayPal Giving Fund:
[*Note: Donations through PayPal take longer to reach this immediate project because of processing timelines —it can take up to 30 days.]
→ SOAL's Lincoln Cemetery GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/73c81ac8
How you can help power this mission
These stories belong to all of us — to descendants, to families searching for their roots, to communities holding memory together through generations of erasure and survival. Every contribution helps us get closer to the secure public archive we all deserve.
1. Donate~Every $ counts. Contribute now to launch the mission
2. Share: Share our campaign with your friends, family, networks, and on social media. Your voice and advocacy will amplify impact.
3. Volunteer: Your time & skills can catalyze our project or spark grassroots conservation elsewhere. Reach out directly or connect online: https://linktr.ee/savingourancestorslegacy
We all need to be the memory keepers now!
Organizer and beneficiary
Rachael Keri Williams
Beneficiary