Dem Days Was HellRecorded Testimonies of Former Slaves from 17 U.S. States: True Life Stories from Hundreds of African Americans in South about Their Life in Slavery and after the Liberation by Work Projects Administration

Dem Days Was HellRecorded Testimonies of Former Slaves from 17 U.S. States: True Life Stories from Hundreds of African Americans in South about Their Life in Slavery and after the Liberation Reviews

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  Jane

  This is a mother-lode of slave stories, an encyclopedia's worth of short narratives gathered by WPA writers during the great Depression. What a great idea - however, it has some problems. First, all the interviewers seem to be white women working from the same script: ask them where they were when Emancipation happened and don't forget to ask them about Voodoo and ghosts. And the interviewees knew who they were talking to. You can hear the crashing sounds of the things hitting the back of their teeth that they're not going to say to the White folks. There are an awful lot of nice Masters and Missuses here. How I wish Zora Neale Hurston had been in charge of this project! That would have been another book! Still,this one makes for compelling reading.
• 
  Barbara

  It is not surprising that there is no discussion on this book. The stories speak for themselves on the most horrific episode in history of Western civilization. American prosperity was built by enslaved peoples. Some of the interviewees dissing the younger generation, saying they want everything handed and aren't willing to work - only want to mess around - things now are the same though different.
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  Audrey C

  Great Book a lot of History
  
  This a great book I love reading about my ancestors what they went through how they felt how they survived ,What were thoughts on the religion and this book has a lot of History in it.
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  Karen Koppy

  
  https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave...
  
  I was shocked at the number of narratives that extolled the "good ole days" during slavery. I began to question the process of the data collection. This narrative collection is a fascinating collection with a lot of limitations concerning the lack of black interviewers, the varied experience of the interviewers, and accuracy of the testimonies, the time of the collection (during the depression when most everyone experienced financial difficulties), the young ages of the interviewees at the time of reconstruction, etc. Read the above article from the Library of Congress for a good review. I'll be reading this huge collection for some time!!
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  Dana

  Just imagine how it was to interview someone who had been a slave???