In the years between 1936 and 1938, members of the Federal Writers' Project collected the extraordinary stories of former slaves before time took its inevitable toll on the last generation of African Americans in captivity.
Some four million slaves were set free at the end of the Civil War in 1865. By the late- 1930’s, seven decades later, that number had dwindled to less than 100,000, and was shrinking at an alarming rate.
Realizing the urgency, professional writers were sent out on the road to locate and interview survivors. The primary goal was simply to get aged African Americans to discuss the range of their experiences and impressions of life under slavery.
The ambitious and comprehensive government-funded study produced the Slave Narrative Collection, a massive compilation containing more than 10,000 typed pages representing more than 2,000 interviews across 17 states.
What follows are excerpts from a sampling of the interviews, written in the vernacular of the former slaves, along with a photograph of each individual…
Some four million slaves were set free at the end of the Civil War in 1865. By the late- 1930’s, seven decades later, that number had dwindled to less than 100,000, and was shrinking at an alarming rate.
Realizing the urgency, professional writers were sent out on the road to locate and interview survivors. The primary goal was simply to get aged African Americans to discuss the range of their experiences and impressions of life under slavery.
The ambitious and comprehensive government-funded study produced the Slave Narrative Collection, a massive compilation containing more than 10,000 typed pages representing more than 2,000 interviews across 17 states.
What follows are excerpts from a sampling of the interviews, written in the vernacular of the former slaves, along with a photograph of each individual…
