Federal Writers’ Project. WPA Slave Narratives. Web. 2007-2024. The WPA Slave Narratives must be used with care. There is, of course, the problem of confusion in memory resulting from (73+ years) of the participants. In addition, inexperienced interviewers sometimes pursued question lines related to their own interests and perspectives and attempted to capture the colloquialism of the informant’s speech. The interviews provide fascinating insight and surprisingly candid information, however.
Person Interviewed: Betty Foreman Chessier Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Place of Birth: Raleigh, North Carolina Date of Birth: July 11, 1843 Age: 94 I was born July 11, 1843 in Raleigh, N. C. My mother was named Melinda Manley, the slave of Governor Manley of North Carolina, and my father was named Arnold Foreman, slave […]
Interviewer: G. Leland Summer Person Interviewed: Bettie Suber Date of Interview: May 18, 1937 Location: Newberry, South Carolina Place of Birth: Newberry County, SC “I was born near old Bush River Baptist Church in Newberry County, S.C. This was the white folks’ church, but the colored folks have a Bush River church in that section
Interviewer: Eliza Ison Person Interviewed: Bert Mayfield Location: Lancaster, Kentucky Place of Birth: Garrard County KY Date of Birth: May 29, 1852 Garrard County. Ex-Slave Stories. (Eliza Ison) Interview with Bert Mayfield: Bert Mayfield was born in Garrard County, May 29, 1852, two miles south of Bryantsville on Smith Stone’s place. His father and mother
Person Interviewed: Bert Luster Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Place of Birth: Watson County, Tennessee Date of Birth: 1853 Age: 85 I’ll be jest frank, I’m not for sho’ when I was born, but it was in 1853. Don’t know the month, but I was sho’ born in 1853 in Watson County, Tennessee. You see my
Interviewer: W. B. Allen Person Interviewed: Berry Smith Location: Forest, Mississippi Place of Birth: Sumpter County, Alabama “Uncle Berry” Smith is five feet two or three inches tall. He is scrupulously neat. He is very independent for his age, which is calculated at one hundred and sixteen years. He believes the figure to be correct.
Interviewer: Adella S. Dixon Person Interviewed: Berry Clay Location: Macon, Georgia Age: 89 Telfair County was the home of some colored people who never were slaves, but hired their services for wages just as the race does today. Berry Clay, half Indian, half white, was the son of Fitema Bob Britt, a full blood Indian,
Interviewer: Grace McCune Person Interviewed: Benny Dillard Location: Athens, Georgia Age: 80 Benny’s rocky little yard is gay with flowers and a flourishing rose vine shades the small porch at the front of his ramshackle two-room cabin. The old Negro was busily engaged at washing his clothes. He is of medium size, darker than gingerbread
Interviewer: W. W. Dixon Person Interviewed: Benjamin Russell Location: South Carolina Age: 88 Ex-Slave 88 Years “I was born fourteen miles north of Chester, S.C. the property of Mrs. Rebecca Nance. After eighty-eight years, I have a vivid recollection of her sympathy and the ideal relations she maintained with her slaves. “My father was just
Interviewer: Albert I Dugan Person Interviewed: Ben Brown Location: Keen St., Zanesville, Ohio Age: 100 Occupation: Railroad worker Yes suh I wuz a slave in Vaginyah, Alvamaul (Albermarle) county an’ I didn’t have any good life, I’m tellin’ you dat! It wuz a tough life. I don’t know how old I am, dey never told
Interviewer: Eliza Ison Person Interviewed: Belle Robinson Location: Garrard County, Kentucky Place of Birth: Garrard County, Kentucky Date of Birth: June 3rd, 1853 I found Aunt Belle sitting on the porch, dressed nice and clean with a white handkerchief pinned on her neck. When I went to her and told her who I was and
Interviewer: Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Beatrice Black Age: 48 Location: Biscoe, Arkansas Occupation: Store and “eating joint” “I was born below the city pump here in Biscoe. My husband is a twin and the youngest of thirteen children. His twin brother is living. They are fifty years old today (August 6, 1938). His mother lived
Interviewer: Robert C. Irvin Person Interviewed: Barney Stone Location: Noblesville, Indiana Place of Birth: Spencer County, Kentucky Date of Birth: May 17, 1847 Age: 91 (about) Robert C. Irvin District #2 Noblesville, Ind. EX-SLAVE, LIFE STORY OF BARNEY STONE, FORMER SLAVE, HAMILTON CO. This is the life story of Barney Stone, a highly respected colored
Interviewer: Mary A. Hicks Person Interviewed: Barbara Haywood Location: 1111 Mark Street, Raleigh, North Carolina Age: 85 Aunt Barbara’s Love Story An interview with Barbara Haywood, 85 years old. Address 1111 Mark Street, Raleigh, North Carolina. Anything dat I tells you will near ’bout all be ’bout Frank Haywood, my husban’. I wus borned on
Person Interviewed: Banana Williams Location: Dade County, Florida Banana Williams, 1740 NW 5th Court, Miami, Florida was born in Grady County, Georgia near Cairo in the 16th district. “The man what I belonged to was name Mr. Sacks. My mother and father lived there. I was only about three years old when peace came, but
Person Interviewed: Mollie Moss Location: Knoxville, Tennessee Age: 82-83 Place of Residence: # 88 Auburn Street, Knoxville, Tennessee There is no street sign or a number on any of the ramshackled frame cottages that seemingly lean with the breezes, first one direction, then another, along the alley that wind’s through the city’s northernmost boundary and
Interviewer: F. S. DuPre Person Interviewed: Mary Williams Location: Spartanburg, South Carolina Aunt Mary Williams stated she remembered slavery times, for she was a girl large enough to walk four miles to go to work “while slavery was on”. She said Mr. Alfred Brown used to own her mother, but she was raised by Mrs.
Interviewer: Mary A. Hicks Person Interviewed: Laura Bell Location: 2 Bragg Street, Raleigh, North Carolina Age: 73 An interview with Laura Bell, 73 years old, of 2 Bragg Street, Raleigh, North Carolina. Being informed that Laura Bell was an old slavery Negro, I went immediately to the little two-room shack with its fallen roof and
Interviewer: Eliza Ison Person Interviewed: Harriet Mason Location: Lancaster, Kentucky Place of Birth: Garrard County KY Date of Birth: April 14, 1847 Garrard County. Ex-Slave Stories. (Eliza Ison) [HW: Ky 11] Aunt Harriet Mason-Ex-Slave: She was born one mile below Bryantsville on the Lexington Pike in Garrard County, and was owned by B.M. Jones. She
Interviewer: Esther S. Pinnix Person Interviewed: Betty Cofer Location: North Carolina Date of Birth: 1856 Age: 81 Negro Folk Lore Of The Piedmont. Sources of Information: Aunt Betty Cofer–ex-slave of Dr. Beverly Jones The ranks of negro ex-slaves are rapidly thinning out, but, scattered here and there among the ante-bellum families of the South, may
“I was born a slave about 1848, in Hickmon County, Tennessee,” said Aunt Adeline who lives as care taker in a house at 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is owned by the Blakely-Hudgens estate. Aunt Adeline has been a slave and a servant in five generations of the Parks family. Her mother, Liza, with
