Once we get Notable African Americans profiled, we can go back to the United States Census for 1920, 1930 and 1940, and find the neighborhoods where these folks grew up. Likely all of their neighbors were black, because African Americans lived in segregated neighborhoods back then, much like our European ethnic groups.
We can then add neighbors of the notables to wikitree to connect to more black families. For instance, most folks know Michael Jackson is from Gary, Indiana. Well, so were his neighbors!
Once we get neighbors added as separate profiles, we can build out from the neighbors profiles too. Local historians do this. I did this with my own neighborhood, finding the early censuses and who lived in the some of our oldest homes.
Another good source of information for black families is the black cemeteries. This may take some work however. In some places, black cemeteries were not taken care of and unfortunately, some of them were even built over. So it will take a lot of research to find some of the cemeteries.
We must remember that not all African Americans were poor. Read Margo Jefferson's "Negroland" to learn more about middle and upper class blacks and how they lived, in this case in Chicago, Illinois.
Sharon
