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.