VARIETY . SPICE . LIFE

My dear friend, teacher and scholar Roberta Logan, posted an excerpt from the testimony of a former slave gathered by the WPA. I remembered that my uncle Marty (Martin Daniel Richardson) had been a part of the group of writers and journalists who collected those stories in the 1930s — in Florida, in his case. I’ve read a few he gathered and some transcribed by others. Many voices, and nothing simple about the choices and decisions enslaved men and women made for themselves and their loved ones.

So, short version, it turns out many of the typescripts were digitized by the Library of Congress. Here’s one; some of you will recognize the location thanks to Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.030/?sp=149