WWII African-American life photographs rescued from trash can

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A Philadelphia woman found photo albums of African-American life during World War II in a trash can. The albums were filled with war era snap shots and pictures from men at war in Europe. Deveta Johnson decided that the pictures were worth conserving. She showed the pictures to her mother, Valerie Johnson, who believed that they should share the pictures with others. The two women decided to turn the albums into the Historical Society of Montgomery, Pa. After the pictures were examined, experts concluded that the pictures were rare and remarkable portraits. The Macon reports:

PHILADELPHIA — Just before Christmas, Deveta Johnson saw something in the trash in Norristown, Pa., that looked like an old pile of grocery bags.

She looked closer and found a tattered photo album, with hundreds of World War II-era snapshots of African-Americans, in wartime Europe and going about their daily lives in row house Philadelphia.

“Wait a minute,” mused Johnson, who had listened to her grandfather’s countless war stories. “This shouldn’t be in the trash.” Her decision to take the album home and show it to her mother, Valoree Nelson, has preserved for posterity what might have been lost to a landfill. In mid-January, Nelson turned the album over to the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pa.

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