To say that Charles White — Buckingham County historian and owner and operator of The Informant, an African-American newspaper — has done a tremendous job in painting the picture of African-American history in Buckingham would be an understatement.

White recently published a revised and expanded edition of “The Hidden and the Forgotten: Contributions of Buckingham Blacks to American History,” which was first published more than 30 years ago.

The book now includes an expanded segment on educators and schooling in Buckingham and African-American soldiers who had served during and after World War I.

White said he and Margaret, his wife, had been running out of copies of the first edition of the book, published in 1985.

When he contacted the publishing company, a representative had told him they no longer had the materials used to publish his first book and that they had only what they had stored digitally.

White took the disappointment as an opportunity.

“I was better off doing what I wanted to do for a long time,” White said, which was to reprint the book with more materials he had gathered from libraries across the commonwealth.

The expanded book was published by Farmville Printing, and White said they had 200 copies of the book delivered to them. I commend White in his goal to describe the accomplishments and challenges faced by African-Americans in the county and to ensure that the history he works to tell isn’t forgotten.

MORGAN WHITE is a staff reporter for The Farmville Herald and Farmville Newsmedia LLC. His email address is Morgan.White@FarmvilleHerald. com.