Heidi Stevens: Black Chicago families get rare chance to preserve their photos, stories, artifacts for free. 'This history is important.'

Lauren Snowden Ingram arrived at the DuSable Museum of African American History on a recent Thursday morning carrying a box of irreplaceable treasure.

A visitor's pass allowing Christine Wright Snowden (Lauren Snowden Ingram's mother) to tour the U.S. Senate floor on July 16, 1956 An original deed, beautifully penned in cursive, proving another relative, John Wesley Snowden, owned land in Montgomery County, Md., in 1899. Bundles of photos that span seven decades.

For an hour, Snowden Ingram parted with her treasures, placing them in the care of on-site archivists, who scanned and digitized her photos