Company 1433:
Building a Legacy
in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

CCC recruitment posters, uniforms, and official insignia promoted ideals of discipline, service, and national unity — presenting the corps as a unified national effort while rarely acknowledging its segregated reality.

CCC Poster, 1941A lone worker stands with a shovel before a backdrop of American flags and oversized CCC initials. The image transforms manual labor into a patriotic act, presenting conservation work as a form of national service. By emphasizing strength, discipline, and sacrifice, materials like this encouraged young men to see enrollment not simply as employment, but as participation in rebuilding the nation during the Great Depression.

Poster: Federal Security Agency, Civilian Conservation Corps, 1941. Public domain — United States federal-government work. (ARCH-0011)

REFLECT

Why place the worker against the American flag — and what aspects of CCC life does that image leave out?

A Young Man's Opportunity for Work, Play, Study & Health, 1941Designed by Albert M. Bender for the Illinois WPA Art Project, this vibrant poster promised young men access to work, education, recreation, and good health through CCC enrollment. Produced the same year Company 1433 completed its work at the Okefenokee, it reflects the program's public-facing promise.

Poster: Albert M. Bender, A Young Man's Opportunity for Work, Play, Study & Health, Illinois WPA Art Project, 1941. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-12896. No known restrictions on publication. (ARCH-0075)

REFLECT

This poster promised equal opportunity — yet Company 1433's men served in a segregated camp. What does the gap between this poster's message and the program's reality reveal about how the CCC presented itself versus how it operated?

CCC Uniform and InsigniaThis preserved CCC uniform, cap, rank insignia, and bugle illustrate the structured culture of camp life. Standardized clothing fostered a sense of discipline and shared identity, while insignia marked achievement and responsibility within the camp hierarchy. Together, these objects reflect how the CCC blended military-inspired organization with civilian conservation work.

Photo: Daderot, 2016. CC0 1.0.

REFLECT

Standardized dress fostered shared identity — how might that identity have differed in a segregated camp like Company 1433?

CCC Shield InsigniaFeaturing forests, water, and the intertwined CCC initials, the Civilian Conservation Corps emblem distilled the program's mission into a single image. Displayed on uniforms, signs, vehicles, publications, and camp property, the shield became one of the most recognizable symbols of New Deal conservation and federal relief during the Great Depression.

Photo: Official CCC program emblem, widely used across all CCC companies

REFLECT

What ideas about conservation and national service does this emblem's design convey?

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Federal guidelines stated that the CCC would not discriminate based on race. In practice, Southern camps operated under Jim Crow segregation. That gap between policy and practice was recorded — but by very different kinds of documents, and for very different purposes.

Administrative Record

CCC quarterly progress reports tracked aggregate output across all companies — miles of firebreak cut, cubic yards of canal cleared, road sections completed. This record-keeping format was standard throughout the program, not specific to Black companies. Individual enrollees rarely appeared by name in any company's reports. What these records omit is not a function of how they were kept, but of what they were designed to measure: output, not people.³ Quarterly Narrative Report, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, 1939. Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge archives.

Black Press Coverage

Black newspapers — the Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender, and Atlanta Daily World among them — reported from a different angle: naming individual enrollees, documenting complaints about unequal treatment, and interviewing men about their daily conditions. The official administrative record is extensive and precise about what was built and when. It is largely silent on individual experience, identity, and voice. Black newspapers — alongside company newsletters, letters, and photographs — fill that silence.⁴ Atlanta Daily World, July 13, 1939. Chronicling America, Library of Congress.

This contradiction did not go unanswered. Black journalists and political leaders documented these inequities and pressed for fairer treatment of African American enrollees — reporting that didn't end discrimination within the CCC, but built a record that later informed broader civil rights struggles. Black newspapers including the Atlanta Daily World, Pittsburgh Courier, and Chicago Defender covered conditions in segregated camps, as did political leaders such as Oscar Stanton De Priest, the first African American elected to Congress in the twentieth century.

These photographs offer glimpses into the daily routines of African American CCC enrollees — work, meals, recreation. The specific companies pictured have not been definitively identified from the images alone. They are representative of experiences documented across segregated camps and are presented here as illustrative of conditions very likely shared by Company 1433.

African American CCC Enrollees at WorkThis photograph offers a glimpse into the vocational training offered in many segregated CCC camps. Here, African American enrollees repair engines, maintain vehicles, and develop mechanical skills under instruction. Beyond conservation projects, the CCC program included training in trades intended to help participants secure employment after leaving — though access to such programs varied by camp and company.

Photo: The National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 35, College Park, Maryland.

REFLECT

Why might vocational training have mattered to enrollees as much as the conservation work itself?

Mess Hall, Segregated CCC CampCCC mess halls like this structured daily rhythm across segregated camps, including Company 1433. The mess hall was a social space — a site of conversation, community, and brief respite from physical labor.

Photo: The National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 35, College Park, Maryland.

REFLECT

The men in photographs like these were not anonymous laborers — they were sons, brothers, musicians, athletes, students, whose individuality is often missing from the historical record.

Recreation Time at the Commissary, African American CCC CampCCC members gather at the commissary — the camp's general store and social hub — during off-duty hours. Baseball games, music, and evenings like this reveal the camaraderie that existed beyond the labor record.

Photo: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 35 (representative image)

REFLECT

What does a moment like this — unrelated to work — suggest about life in camp?

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Black journalists, federal advisors, and political leaders documented inequities within the CCC and pressed for fair treatment of African American enrollees. These efforts didn't end discrimination within the program, but they generated evidence that would later inform broader civil rights struggles.

Edgar G. BrownEdgar G. Brown, shown at left with Leon Henderson and Donald Gordon in 1942 or 1943, served as the Civilian Conservation Corps' advisor on African American affairs and was a member of President Roosevelt's informal "Black Cabinet." Throughout the 1930s, Brown monitored Black participation in the CCC, investigated complaints, and reported disparities in enrollment, leadership opportunities, education programs, and camp conditions. His reports remain among the most important federal records documenting the experiences of African American enrollees in a segregated CCC system.

Photo: Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection (fsa.8b08671); U.S. Office for Emergency Management, 1942–43. Public domain.

Oscar Stanton De PriestOscar Stanton De Priest (1871–1951) was the first African American elected to Congress in the twentieth century, serving Illinois's 1st District from 1929 to 1935. During the New Deal era, De Priest used his national platform to challenge racial discrimination in federal programs and advocate for greater opportunities for African Americans. His work reflected broader efforts by Black political leaders to hold federal agencies accountable and push for more equitable treatment within programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Advocates preserved evidence of unequal treatment within the CCC. The surviving records of Company 1433—including newsletters, photographs, and personnel files—do something equally important: they help restore individual men to a history that too often recorded only their labor.