Belinda HurmenceRezensionen

21 Oral Histories - most from people living in Raleigh, NC

Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember, edited by Belinda Hurmence (pp 135). This is the second book in a series of oral histories of former slaves. These are individuals who were interviewed in 1937 as part of the Federal Writer’s Project to provide work to unemployed writers. The former slaves were from South Carolina and were in theit 80’s and 90’s when they were interviewed, meaning all were young when enslaved. This volume includes the stories of twenty-seven men and women, and is written in their dialect with some explanatory notes. However, I was unable to discern the meaning of some words and phrases. That in no way detracted from the overall content. It’s a fascinating first person look into slavery, especially as compared to dire living conditions in the post-Reconstruction South when many blacks were, for all practical purposes, re-enslaved. Virtually none of these individuals could read or write, so these are oral histories in the strictest sense.

Who could better describe what slavery was like than the people who experienced it? More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina sponsored by the Federal Writers' Project during the 1930's The collection is now housed in the Library of Congress. The twenty-one voices in this slim volume are between the ages of 80- to 103-years old at the time of their interviews.

Editor Belinda Hurmence’s My Folks Don’t Want Me To Talk About Slavery provides excerpts about the lives of ex-slaves. Much of this narrative originated through the Federal Writers’ Project that was created to provide work for jobless writers and researchers. It initiated a program whereby field workers interviewed ex-slaves wherever they were found. But the contents of this book represented a compilation of stories of ex-slaves in North Carolina.
Each ex-slave’s narrative begins with where he or she was born in North Carolina. A discussion followed and the slaves who were mainly in their “eighties and nineties” described their lives in slavery. They commented about their meagre diets of cornbread, meats, and molasses, and their inadequate clothing. They talked about having working in the fields from sun up to sun down, and the whippings they received from their master or mistress when they disobeyed them. The slaves’ rules were often harsh, and based on the whims of the slave holders.
Many ex-slaves were encouraged to attend the church of their master and mistress. They would hear the preacher talk about how they should obey their master. But they were never given the chance to learn from books. For it was against the rules for them to be caught reading a book or a newspaper. These slaves couldn’t even read the Bible. So for the most part, a majority of the ex-slaves didn’t even know how to read or write.
It was however surprising to hear that many of these ex-slaves liked being with their master and mistress. Some of them said that they were well-treated, and they enjoyed their slave holders. On the other hand one wonders if these ex-slaves were only saying what they thought the interviewers wanted to hear. Many of them though thought that even after they were emancipated that their living conditions were worse. This was because they had their freedom, but had no one to care for them with a cabin, food, and clothing. Many of these ex-slaves therefore opted to remain with their slave master and mistress, for they lacked the means to take care of themselves.

Ex-lib. AADL

As with Hurmence's previous collection (We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard), this is a troubling and mind-opening collection of narratives by slaves. Collected as part of the Federal Writer's Project, these stories languished in dusty archives until Hurmence pulled them into the light. This particular collection is from slaves in North Carolina. It is broad-ranging, meaning not all narrators hated slavery and whites. It is an interesting thing to find. One would assume that given the horrors of slavery, there would be much vitriol and bitterness. You do find this, but not as much as I expected. Hurmence does mention that the collectors of the stories were white and this may have skewed the narratives (meaning that even in 1924, blacks would not be comfortable criticizing whites to a white person). It is important to remember this when reading these narratives.
This book, and the others in the series, are must-reads for anyone who wants to learn about the history of slavery and racism in the US. They are particularly suited for classroom use, either public or homeschool, and would be okay for children in later elementary and up.

This is a slender volume whose simplicity belies the nature of the narrative within. Hurmence presents a carefully curated collection of the some 600 plus tales gathered during this Project. The only words that are her own is the introduction where she explains her criteria and editing choices. For the most part, she has maintained the voice of the speaker, keeping vernacular, vocabulary, exclamations, and descriptions. By doing this, she has preserved the authenticity of the voices, giving the reader a true glimpse into the life of these people.
One thing that surprised me what how well most of the narrators spoke about their masters. Given the horrors of slavery, I would have expected more to depict this travesty. And yet many did not. One speaker noted that owners in Virginia tended to treat slaves better become freedom was so close – merely a few hundred miles away. I wonder if this is accurate or if this is a product of the fact the people collecting the stories were white and sought out “white people aren’t so bad” stories. Perhaps reading this authors other works (collections from North and South Carolina) would help solve this question.
The language is simple enough for younger readers, but the subject matter may require adult guidance to process. Still, I would highly recommend for educational purposes.

It is so important to remember history the way that it actually happened. The best way to do that is by collecting interviews, which is how this book came to be. I have no recollection of reading a more varied, honest-sounding compilation of accounts. This book is the result of the Federal Writers' Project, which was created to provide work for historians, teachers, writers, and others while creating a series of guide books. American life histories and the histories of slaves were collected in a series of interviews, which have been edited together here.

This is an invaluable resource that I stumbled upon in my local library and would not have known existed otherwise. As someone who loves actual history told by the people who lived it, I simply cherished every word that I read. It is a quick read that makes you want to track down every interview you can for the other states that are available.

Intense. Seeing the horrors, and details, of slavery through a modern child's eyes is so much more enlightening than any history text.

Oral histories of former (American negro) slaves, collected as a WPA assignment. Compact, concise, fascinating, and valuable.

Oral histories from the time of slavery in the US.

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.

During the Great Depression, one of the Federal Writers' Project activities was locating former slaves and interviewing them. The resultant collection of these oral histories has been microfilmed by the Library of Congress, the Slave Narratives, which make up seventeen volumes (10,000 pages) of material. In this volume of a publisher's series of the oral histories, twenty-seven of these narratives of former slaves have been chosen giving a range of views on slavery in South Carolina.

The introduction by Belinda Hurmence is worthwhile reading before diving in to the interviews. She mentions that many former slaves talk positively about their experiences, and offers a few ideas on why this is so - looking back on the past often gives us a rosier view, the Great Depression, and the fact that a black person is being interviewed by a white person all probably had an impact to varying degrees on what the former slave would say about his or her experiences. Even so, when you read between the lines about how a master might treat his slaves, a person's memories of being sold or parents being whipped, it's heartbreaking no matter what the person says about their master being kind or "not hardhearted."

The interviews are taken from various places around the state of South Carolina, including the islands, and covers the experience of field hands and house slaves, men and women, who were children during the Civil War. I'm not quite sure why the editor decided to shift things chronologically, however, because I think that the way someone says something and the order they put it in gives it a meaning on its own, regardless of the actual chronology of events. Regardless, I found these interviews a fascinating exploration of slavery from those who experienced it themselves; this is worthwhile reading for any student of American history.

This little book brings together 27 oral histories collected by the Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s. All of the interviewees were in their 80s or older at the time, and were at least 10 years of age at the end of the Civil War. The editor includes a thoughtful introduction in which she considers possible reasons the ex-slaves, almost to a person, remembered their days in servitude as "the good old days", when they were happier and certainly more secure than at any time since.

Each person talks randomly about his or her memories, rather than being guided by a list of questions. The stories are, individually and collectively, incredibly depressing in their solicitude for ex-owners and their matter-of-fact descriptions of treatment and living standards. There is little outrage, almost a lassitude regarding slavery vs. freedom as a concept, perhaps a result of these people having been raised in slavery and being ill-prepared to make their own way during Reconstruction and after. Yankees, the KKK, and slave patrollers are viewed with equal negativity.

An interesting and disturbing detour around the intervening 80 years of political correctness.½

We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard is a compilation of slave narratives selected to illustrate experiences of slavery in Virginia. Why bother with this small selection of 21 narratives when a digital collection of more than 2,300 slave narratives is available in the Library of Congress’s American Memory collection? The value is in the selection and editing of the collection. Most of the selections are drawn from the 15 Virginia oral histories collected as part of the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project and deposited in the Library of Congress. Rounding out the compilation are selections from other states whose interview subjects were born in Virginia and who described their experiences of slavery in Virginia in their interviews. The editor purposely included accounts only for those individuals who were over eighty years old at the time they were interviewed in the 1930s, reasoning that these accounts contain less hearsay than those of slightly younger interviewees. By looking at these accounts collectively, one forms an idea of what it was like to be a slave in Virginia just before and during the Civil War. This selection is well-suited for use with middle readers and above. Highly recommended.½

During the the 1930's, The Federal Writers' Project was an initiative to create work for jobless writers & researchers. Some of these people were sent out to interview former slaves before they all died. This book is a collection of some of the 170 interviews that were done in North Carolina. It is fascinating to read the different treatment by different masters on the same road. Even more intriguing is the different treatment meted out to slaves on the same plantation by the master & the mistress. Contrary to what you may think, at least two of the memoirs in this volume tell of plantations where the master was a caring man who did not use physical punishment while the mistress was a terror with whip. Some of these men & women look back on the slavery period with fondness. They had warm shelter & good clothes both of which they did have after freedom.

These stories were compiled by the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s from memories of ex-slaves then in their 80s and 90s. As the introduction comments, many of te memories are surprisingly benign (especially compared with accounts written during the slavery era by escaped or freed slaves). It may be in part because they were told to white writers, or because events "since Freedom" had been so unpleasant that the slavery period looked good by comparison. It is especially striking that the coming of Yankee soldiers is generally remembered as destroying food and housing and leaving the slaves to starve.

I wish everyone could read this little book. It shows Southern Slavery in many differnt lights. Everything in it is first hand accounts by former slaves.

Through the oral telling of personal history as slaves this books brings to reality what it was like living in the Southern United States during one of America's most troubling eras. I found it fascinating that many of the slaves claimed to like their owners or state that when they received beatings it was only because they were bad in some way. The stories of Paddy Wagons, the KKK and brutal overseers really hit home and gave a small glimpse in to what life must have been like for black Americans during and just after the civil war.

00015799