Some of the most powerful, poignant, and detailed records of formerly enslaved persons are first-person accounts collected in the pre- and post-emancipation eras. These include private records - like family Bibles or letters shared between family members - as well as interviews of ex-slaves conducted decades later. All of these testimonies can help researchers to access the lives and voices of African Americans in slavery and the immediate post-emancipation era.

Examples of records: Narratives collected by Fisk University, the Virginia Writers Project, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Oral histories collected by individual families and institutions, Information wanted/lost friends newspaper advertisements (Black Republican [New Orleans], Charleston (SC) Courier, Colored Citizen [Cincinnati], Free Man’s Press [Galveston, Texas], The Liberator [Boston], etc.), Personal letter and diaries of formerly enslaved women, men and children.