deborah willis collected these through her exhibit and this book shows how african-americans documented throughout the war to project stories of courage, family and citizenship to counteract prevailing stereotypes, and the national archives hosted this talk and provided the video. >> greetings from the national archives. i'm david fair owe, archivist, and it is my pleasure to present deborah willis author of "the black civil war hero." the civil war was the most prolonged conflict to be extensively documented in photographs. it gives aus sense of immediacy that we don't have from paintings and prints from the revolutionary war or other earlier conflicts. we can individual the individual faces and imagine ourselves in the battlefields in the aftermath of the fighting. thousands of those images are in the national archives burk photos of the black soldiers are rare. in the book "the black civil war soldier" deborah willis shows us the faces of the black soldiers who took up arms to fight for their freedom. using photographs and the written record, she examines not only the individual stor

now let's hear from deborah willis. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. i am excited to be here and i thank the national archives for this invitation to share my work and inviting me. it is really exciting to consider the work -- a place where i did a lot of work in terms of research at the national archives focusing on my topic. my topic also is about memory and rediscovery as well as investigating the legacy of african-american soldiers as well as women who were teachers and nurses and to think about how photography, letters and diaries form this experience. i am going to start off with sharing my screen. and which will include a talk focusing on my research. and beginning here with the first image, it is the cover of the book, and the image that celebrates, but also documents the experience of image making. this one of the photographs that is part of the collection, and it really tells story of the experience of what it meant to be photographed and then how do we preserve that

deborah willis is university professor and chair of the department of photography and imaging at the tisch school of the arts at new york university and has an affiliated appointment with the college of arts and sciences department of social and cultural analysis and africanus studies. well, this is the author of envisioning emancipation and michelle obama. both of which received naacp image awards as well as posing beauty now, let's hear from deborah willis. thank you for joining us today. thank you. welcome and good afternoon everyone. i'm excited to be here and i thank the national archives for this invitation and to share my work and inviting me. it's really exciting to consider the work a place where i that a lot of work in terms of research at the national archives focusing on my topic my my topic also it's about memory and rediscovery as well as investigating the legacy of african-american soldiers as well as women and who were teachers and nurses and to think about how photography letters and diaries. form this experience. i'm going to start off with sharing my screen. and an

deborah willis collected these through her exhibit and this book shows how african-americans documented throughout the war to project stories of courage, family and citizenship to counteract prevailing stereotypes, and the national archives hosted this talk and provided the video. >> greetings from the national archives. i'm david fair owe, archivist, and it is my pleasure to present deborah willis author of "the black civil war hero." the civil war was the most prolonged conflict to be extensively documented in photographs. it gives aus sense of immediacy that we don't have from paintings and prints from the revolutionary war or other earlier conflicts. we

in her book the black civil war soldier deborah willis shows us theac

willis author of the black civil war soldier. the civil war was the first large and prolonged conflict to extensively be recorded in photographs. this visual record gives us a

deborah willis collected these through her exhibit and this book shows how african-americans used photography to document for history their role in the war and to project stori