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978-0-89587-069-8
0-89587-069-X
$8.95 paperback
5" x 7 1/2"
135 pages black-and-white photographs
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During the 1930s, the Federal
Writers' Project undertook the task of locating former slaves and
recording their oral histories. The more than ten thousand pages of
interviews with over two thousand former slaves were filed in the
Library of Congress, where they were known to scholars and historians
but few others.
From this storehouse of
information, Belinda Hurmence has chosen twenty-seven narratives from
the twelve hundred type-written pages of interviews with 284 former
South Carolina slaves. The result is a moving, eloquent, and often
surprising firsthand account of the last years of slavery and first
years of freedom. The former slaves describe the clothes they wore, the
food they ate, the houses they lived in, the work they did, and the
treatment they received. They give their impressions of Yankee soldiers,
the Klan, their masters, and their newfound freedom.
In Before Freedom, When I
Just Can Remember, Hurmence makes accessible to the casual reader
what many scholars and historians have long known to be a great source
for our nation's history.
about the author
Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated
at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written
several novels for young people. In 1984, Hurmence edited My
Folks Don't Want Me To Talk About Slavery, a companion volume to
this book, which includes twenty-one narratives from former slaves in
North Carolina. She has also edited We
Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard, chronicling the lives of
Virginia slaves.
Click on one of the following
books to learn more about the other slave narrative titles in Blair's
Real Voices, Real History™ series.
My
Folks Don't Want Me To Talk About Slavery
We Lived in a Little Cabin in the
Yard
On Jordan's Stormy Banks
Mighty Rough Times, I Tell You
Prayin'
to Be Set Free
I
Was Born in Slavery
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