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978-0-89587-039-1
0-89587-039-8
$6.95 paperback
5" x 7 1/2"
103 pages
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"One day
Grandpappy sassed Miss Polly White, and she told him that if he didn't
behave hisself that she would put him in her pocket. Grandpappy was a
big man, and I ask him how Miss Polly could do that. He said that meant
that she would sell him, then put the money in her pocket. He never did
sass Miss Polly no more." --Sarah Debro
"Slavery was a
bad thing, and freedom, of the kind we got, with nothing to live on, was
bad. Two snakes full of poison. One lying with his head pointing north,
the other with his head pointing south. Their names was slavery and
freedom. The snake called slavery lay with his head pointed south, and
the snake they called freedom lay with his head pointed north. Both bit
the nigger, and they was both bad." --Patsy Mitchner
These eloquent words come
from former slaves themselves--an important but long-neglected source of
information about the institution of slavery in the United States. Who
could better describe what slavery was like than the people who
experienced it? And describe it they did, in thousands of remarkable
interviews sponsored by the Federal Writers' Project during the 1930s.
The words quoted above
represent only two of the more than 2,000 slave narratives that are now
housed in the Library of Congress. More than 170 interviews were
conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the
North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person
accounts in this collection.
These narratives, though
artless in many ways, speak compellingly of the joys and sorrows, the
hopes and dreams, of the countless people who endured human bondage in
the land of the free.
about the editor
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. Hurmence edited two other slave
narrative volumes in the Real Voices, Real History ™ series, including
Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember
and We Lived in a Little
Cabin in the Yard.
Other slave narrative titles in
Blair's Real Voices, Real History™ series:
Before
Freedom, When I Just Can Remember
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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