During your research have any of you evertried to deal with the census for a certain year, lets say 1930, and your state like in my case North Carolina. Let me say it this way. In the 1930 Census for Rowan County, N.C., I tapped into my Ancestry.Com and came up with the population of the people in 1930 at that time. Rowan County has several townships: and so I went to that township, like Gold Hill, came up with the total population of 1,990, and from it came up with 92 who were African American. I cannot say how true it is, but I did other checking, and came as close to it.
Joseph