Slave
Narratives
From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the
American South were interviewed by writers and journalists
under the sponsorship of the Works Progress Administration
(WPA). These former slaves, most born in the last years of
the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand
accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and
on small farms. Their narratives remain a peerless resource
for understanding the lives of America's four million slaves.
What makes the WPA narratives so rich is that they capture
the very voices of American slavery, revealing the texture
of life as it was experienced and remembered.
Here are some of the narratives that deal with Dallas County,
Arkansas.
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