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LEWISTOWN - During the next two years, teams of historians and students affiliated with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the African American Museum of Philadelphia will embark on a mission to document the African American history of the commonwealth.

Each year PHMC promotes a history theme to "engage and educate the public," PHMC Historian Ken Wolensky said, adding that in 2010 the theme will be "Black History in Pennsylvania."

"We have never really taken a comprehensive look at black history in Pennsylvania," Wolensky said.

Although a comprehensive look has not been done, it would be "safe to say that no state in the nation has looked at black history so extensively," Wolensky said of Pennsylvania's current records, which he hopes will continue to grow in accessibility to the public.

The ultimate goal of the project is to compile as many untold stories as possible and identify buildings and communities most significantly associated with African Americans in the commonwealth.

As part of this project, a team headed by professor Craig Stutman recently landed in Lewistown, and has begun to make preliminary contacts to research and record the African American history of Central Pennsylvania.

Stutman was joined by Project Coordinator Ivan Henderson and Temple University intern Monica Rhodes who met with a local historian and retired Pennsylvania State Police Cpl., Bernard Chatman.

Chatman has spent the past 25 years researching and documenting the history of African Americans in Central Pennsylvania and other parts of the country.

"All my vacations have been history based," Chatman said of his travels to the South to explore and document the history of African Americans.

Chatman's interest to do this stems from being "chosen as the family storyteller" while at a family reunion in Mount Union more than two decades ago.

"Most black families have a storyteller," Chatman said of the traditional oral history of African American families.

Ever since that reunion, Chatman set out to research and record the history of his family.

Chatman said he "follows the egg," and traces his family by matrilineal descent. Chatman has traced his family from the West African nation of Sierra Leone to the American South, and finally to Mifflin and Huntingdon counties.

Chatman and his cousin, Lowell Rogers, tell Stutman about how both of their fathers worked in the brickyards of Mount Union, as did Rogers, who now is retired.

"A large amount of people came from South from 1910 to 1930, and community development occurred alongside this migration," Stutman said of what he has found through his research into Pennsylvania's black communities.

Stutman added that there were a lot of advertisements in southern newspapers asking for black laborers in the North.

Rogers said although blacks were sought out for the labor-intensive job of working in Mount Union's many brickyards, the division of labor between whites and blacks often was unequal.

Rogers added that to make matters worse, if there was a lag in the brick industry and the demand was low for brick, blacks were the first to be fired, regardless of how long they had worked there.

Stutman said a large part of this project is interviewing people, such as Chatman and Rogers who have strong ties to their community and extensive historical records.

"We really have heard some amazing stories," Stutman said of his past interviews throughout the state.

Among some of those amazing stories include several that Chatman told to Stutman and the rest of his team.

Chatman has several binders full of historical data from the county, some of which he acquired from the Mifflin County Historical Society and some documents that came from other primary sources, such as the military and family records.

Chatman is particularly proud of a Civil War "Muster Sheet" that lists some black troops that served during the war.

Chatman added that during the time of the Civil War, the Heller-Hoenstine Funeral Home was a farm that supplied the Union Army and was guarded by black soldiers.

Chatman said some of those soldiers are buried in the cemetery across the street from the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Lewistown, at the corner of West Third and North Juniata streets.

The entrance to the cemetery has a large stone marker which reads, "In memory of Union Veterans buried here 1861-1865. This tablet placed and dedicated May 30, 1942 by Veterans of Mifflin County."

Chatman said the marker is extremely significant because it makes no reference to the fact that the cemetery was set aside for black soldiers.

"War changes peoples attitudes," Chatman said, adding that for soldiers, the color of your skin makes no difference.

Chatman is a member of the local A.M.E. Church and knows quite a bit about the history of the church, including the church's pivotal role in the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement.

Chatman said there were several routes of the Underground Railroad that passed through Pennsylvania, and there even were some safe houses for runaway slaves in Mifflin County.

Stutman said the A.M.E. churches in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are good "primary sources", especially the newspaper published by the church, The A.M.E. Church Review.

"The church is a focal point in many communities," Stutman said of the social structure of many black communities.

In addition to looking at the church's roll in black communities, the project also will look at social organizations, the labor industry, military records, entertainment, sports teams and a variety of other topics.

The project also will tackle what Stutman said is a history of institutionalized racism, which occurred both in an explicit way, such as Ku Klux Klan gatherings, and in an implicit way, as well by creating roadblocks that prevented blacks from any upward mobility in the job market.

"Jim Crow wasn't just isolated to the South," Stutman said.

"The key here is to collect as much as we can, to do a good study ... it's really a puzzle using a variety sources to put it together," Stutman said of the project.

When the project concludes, PHMC will launch a Web site devoted to the findings as well as a book, "which will appeal to a historian and the lay person," Stutman added.