A cruel history is told in slaves' own words
Originally published in Current, Sept. 14, 1998
Stepney Underwood, an ex-slave who tells his story on Smithsonian's Remembering Slavery.
By Karen Everhart Bedford
A former slave, Josephine Smith, recalls the harrowing death of a mother who, three weeks after giving birth, was sold at auction and forced to give up her baby and march to New Orleans:
"She was so weak, weak enough to fall in the middle of the road," says actress Debbie Allen, in a dramatic reading of Smith's first-hand account. After begging Smith for a drink of water, the woman later dies by the side of the road. "Right there, they buries her," she says of the speculators, who were cussing about money they'd lost on the dead slave.
"If I thought I'd ever been a slave again, I'd take a gun and just end it all right away, because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog," says Fountain Hughes, whose grandfather was held as a slave by Thomas Jefferson.
The horrors of slavery, a repressed but undeniable part of the American psyche, achieve public expression in Remembering Slavery, a two-part radio documentary that brings first-hand accounts of life during and after slavery to a public audience.
Public Radio International will distribute Remembering Slavery next month; New Press will publish a companion book, to be packaged with audio cassettes of the documentary, and a teaching and listening guide. In addition, audio from Remembering Slavery will be published on the web as a resource for listeners and students. CPB and the National Endowment for the Humanities were among the funders.
The two hour-long docs are organized chronologically: the first program deals with life during slavery, including the auctions, life on the plantation and master-slave relationships; the second program, with former slaves' experiences during the Civil War and after emancipation.
Raw materials for the documentaries are interviews with former slaves that were conducted decades ago--when the Federal Writers Project employed writers to collect and publish stories of common folk. As a small part of that effort, some 3,000 interviews with former slaves were transcribed or captured on primitive recording machines. Ever since, these oral histories sat in the Library of Congress, largely overlooked, according to Wesley Horner, executive producer for Smithsonian Productions.
Jacquie Gales Webb, series producer for the Smithsonian, learned of their existence from the Alabama-based Institute of Language and Culture, which had a few interviews in its own archives, recalled Horner. Smithsonian formed a production partnership with the Institute, and collaborated with the Library of Congress to restore the audio recordings.
"You hear people tell first-hand experiences of what life was like in slavery and the years afterwards," says Horner. "These are some of the most frightening, bone-chilling, inspiring stories I've ever heard in my life."
"It's one thing to read them; it's another to hear an elderly woman talking about mothers being torn from their babies and hauled off in railroad cars, never to be seen again."
"These elderly people were so matter-of-fact about their stories--it was in such contrast to what these stories were about. It made me understand how strong these people were."
Because many of the interviews exist only on paper--and because some subjects spoke in thick dialects--some of the passages are read by such actors as Louis Gossett and Esther Rolle.
Tonea Stewart hosts the documentary, and recounts the cruel ordeal of Papa Dallas, a blind former slave in her own family. When, at the tender age of six, she asked Papa Dallas what had happened to his eyes, he tells how, as a child no older than she, he had his eyes burned out after an overseer caught him studying the alphabet. Stewart remembers Papa Dallas telling her not to cry for him, but instead asks that she promise to read every book she can, "cover to cover," and finish school.
"I have a hunch this will be one of those shows people will talk and talk about," predicts Horner.
The October release of Remembering Slavery will coincide with PBS's high-profile broadcast of Africans in America, a historical documentary by Orlando Bagwell about America during slavery [separate article]. Horner said the complementary scheduling came about by sheer coincidence, "but we're sure happy."
Related story: Also airing in October 1998, public TV's Africans in America.
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