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978-0-89587-284-65
0-89587-284-6
$10.95 paperback
5" x 7 1/2"
191 pages
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From
1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), a part of the New
Deal’s Works Progress Administration, hired writers, editors, and
researchers to interview as many former slaves as they could find and
document their lives during slavery. More than 2,000 former slaves in 17
states were interviewed. With Weren’t
No Good Times, John F. Blair, Publisher, continues its Real Voices,
Real History ™ series with selections from 44 of the 125 interviews
now archived in the Library of Congress that were earmarked as
interviews with Alabama slaves.
Some
of the best Alabama narratives were conducted by Ruby Pickens Tartt, who
can be fairly described as the mother of folklore in Alabama. In
addition to her work with the FWP, Tartt collected folk tales, folk
songs, and children’s games and rhymes. She left a rich body of work
that has been widely used by all Alabama folklorists and historians who
have followed her through the decades.
Alabama was a frontier state. From the beginning, its economy was built
on cotton and slavery and its laws were fashioned to accommodate both,
which becomes obvious when related through the experiences of Alabama’s
slaves. A year after it obtained statehood, Alabama had a slave
population of 41,879, as compared to 85,451 whites and 571 free blacks.
By 1860, the slave population had swelled to 435,080, while there were
536,271 whites and 2,690 free blacks. When emancipation came to the
slaves, Alabama’s slave owners lost an estimated $200 million of
capital.
These narratives will help readers understand slavery by hearing the
voices of the people who lived it.
about
the editor
Randall
Williams, an Alabama native, has researched and written extensively
about civil rights, segregation, and slavery during three decades as a
reporter, writer, editor, and publisher of newspapers, magazines, and
books. He is the former managing editor of Southern
Changes magazine and was the founding director of the Southern
Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch Project. He is the author of the
children's books Johnnie Carr
and W. E. B. Du Bois.
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 |
