My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk about Slavery Book

Somewhere in the Library of Congress there are 10,000 typewritten pages of interviews with former slaves.  This archive, known as Slave Narratives, is the result of a government funded project to provide work for some of the unemployed during the depression in the U.S. in the 1930's:  The Federal Writers' Project.  Out of these stories of 2,000 people, Belinda Hurmence has chosen to edit and publish 21 of these stories, focusing on those who lived in North Carolina.  The location was perfect for me because I recently read Emma LeConte's diary of her life in North Carolina during the march of Sherman, written from her perspective as a slave owner.  Each chapter is short, around 4 pages, and the interviewers worked from a list of the same questions.  Because of that I found the stories to be somewhat repetitive at times, but realized this method also provided for a good comparison of attitudes and experiences of different people in similar circumstances.  For example, all were asked about their physical care regarding food, clothing, and housing.  In this common experience of slavery, there was a variety of stories as some were starved, while others were fed well.  Other questions were directed at literacy (non-existent), religion, whipping.  No analysis is made of the stories, although there is a good introduction by Hurmence, reminding the reader of the circumstances and timing of the interviews, e.g. during the depression the past may have looked better than it would if you interviewed the same people today.  Of course there is the fact that the period following emancipation was a transition period that did not go smoothly.  Some met it with joy, others with fear, and others with the common Stockholm Syndrome.

This was interesting, if painful, reading in light of conversations today as we hear responses to current movies such as Django and Twelve Years a Slave, as well as the class wars addressed by Occupy Wall Street.  There are some who say that plantations have been replaced by ghettoes, which are just as difficult to escape from.  It's difficult for me to understand that comparison when I think about slaves being whipped and starved and separated from their families.  Then I think about the racist use of the death penalty today, hunger and poverty in the U.S. today, and the racist use of child protective services and let's don't even get started on who died in Vietnam.

Fascinating if depressing reading, these are stories that deserve to be heard, with a reminder that they were told to white people so need to be followed up by reading African American authors.