With the local model and technological tools being developed as part of it, U.Va. will also help historically black colleges and universities around the state build similar community projects, said Reginald D. Butler, director of the Woodson Institute, and William G. Thomas, director of the Center for Digital History. With tools, databases and electronic forms being developed and tested, scholars elsewhere will have a framework for building their own projects. In the Charlottesville project Web users can now search the site's databases of African-American businesses and households, as recorded in U.S. Census returns and Charlottesville city directories of the early 20th century. They can also explore the political correspondence of African-Americans who struggled to retain their voting rights in the face of statewide disenfranchisement campaigns. The Jim Crow era is especially important with K-12 history projects because it's a period that's often overlooked, he said.
Many schools concentrate on earlier or later African-American history.
Both at U.Va. The Virginia Center for Digital History was founded by the University of Virginia in 1998.