Slavery Narratives Lesson Plan

Central Historical Question

What can we learn about slavery from interviews with former slaves?

Materials:
Slavery Narratives PowerPoint
Copies of Documents A-C
Copies of Guiding Questions

Note: The historical documents in this lesson include strong racial language, including
repeated use of the n word. We recommend that teachers use discretion when using
these documents and substitute edited documents for the originals when appropriate.

Note: This lesson draws on resources from a Library of Congress digital collection titled
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938. The
collection includes a wealth of digital resources, including over 2,300 interviews with
former slaves and 500 photographs from the Federal Writers Project. You can access
these materials at: https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-
writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/

Plan of Instruction:

1. Introduction. Use the Slavery Narratives PowerPoint to provide a brief overview
of the Federal Writers Project and its efforts to interview former slaves. This
lesson is designed to complement a broader examination of slavery and not to
stand alone as a comprehensive treatment of this broad and complex topic, so
you may want to set the stage by reviewing what students have already learned
about slavery and to foreshadow that this lesson will ask them to think carefully
about historical evidence.

a. Slide 2: Federal Writers Project. The Federal Writers Project (FWP) was
established in 1935 as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelts New
Deal. The project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA),
was designed to employ writers, editors, historians, and researchers who
were out of work during the Great Depression. Initially, the FWPs main
project was to write guide books that would inform readers about the
history, culture, and economy of different areas of the country. Soon,
however, the FWP took on a variety of writing and research projects that
would document other aspects of American culture at the time.

b. Slide 3: Slave Narratives Project. One of these projects was to interview

former slaves about their experiences in bondage. Interest in recording the
experiences of former slaves had grown in the 1920s and 1930s. A
number of private efforts were launched to interview members of this
aging population, but these were relatively small in scale. In 1937, the

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FWP launched a large-scale public project to interview former slaves. By

the end of 1938, FWP employees conducted interviews in 17 states with
over 2,300 former slaves and took over 500 photographs of the people
they interviewed. Most of the interviewers were white, and their expertise
in conducting interviews varied, with some interviewers bringing almost no
experience to the project. Very few of the interviews were taped, so in
some cases the transcripts reflect the interviewers attempt to record
quickly as the speaker was talking or the interviewers recollection of the
interview after the fact.

The collection provides a wealth of information about the experiences of

people who had been enslaved. The collection is especially important
because few first-person accounts had been recorded from the
perspective of those who had been enslaved. Before this collection was
published in the 1970s, mainstream histories of slavery were told from the
perspectives of white people only. Many of these histories portrayed
slavery as beneficial to slaves and slaveholders as kind and caring. The
interviews from the Federal Writers Project have helped to give a voice to
those who had been systematically silenced and have provided valuable
information from the perspectives of those enslaved.

(Note that the students will read interviews with the people pictured on the
slide.)

c. Slide 4: Central Historical Question. Although these interviews have

provided historians with valuable information, it does not mean that they
are perfect windows into the past. Historians must think critically about the
types of conclusions they can draw from these kinds of interviews. They
must consider the strengths and limitations of these accounts as evidence
of the past. Our job today is to think like a historian would about whether
these interviews are good evidence of the past. In particular, we are going
to look at three interviews from the Federal Writers Project to answer the
question: What can we learn about slavery from interviews with former
slaves?

2. Inquiry.

a. In small groups, have students read the three interviews (Docs A-C) and
complete the Guiding Questions in the Graphic Organizer.

Note: The transcripts for Documents A and B may be difficult for students
to decode, so the lesson includes modified versions of these two
documents that have more conventional spellings. If you think your
students will struggle with the original documents, we suggest using the
modified documents to support their reading of the original documents.
However, it is important that the students at least see the original

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documents because some of the Guiding Questions focus on the

decisions of the interviewer in transcribing the original interviews.

b. Discuss student responses to the questions in the chart. Check to see that
students understand the content of each of the documents. The text in
Documents A and B may be especially challenging for students, so you
may want field clarifying questions about particular passages from text
before engaging in a big-picture discussion of the content. After discussing
the content of the passages, make sure that students understand how the
accounts are both similar and different.

Be sure students see that all three accounts highlight horrors and
injustices of slavery. However, Tempie Herndon Durhams account
portrays slavery in a surprisingly positive light. Note this and mention that
you will consider reasons why she might have portrayed it this way in the
next part of the lesson.

c. Have students work in small groups to complete Guiding Question 1.

d. Discuss Question 1 as a class. The goal for Question 1 is to allow

students an opportunity to use the questions as a framework for reasoning
about interviews as evidence. It is okay if students do not generate a
complete list at this point in the lesson. You will have opportunities to think
more deeply about the sources in the Going Deeper section of the
Guiding Questions. The topics that will be covered more extensively in the
Going Deeper section are indicated with an asterisk (*) below.

Strengths:
The interviews are first-person accounts of slavery by formerly
enslaved people. Given how few accounts exist from people
formerly enslaved, this is an important source of information about
the experiences of an oppressed and silenced group.

Many of the interviews were conducted by interviewers who were

interested in faithfully recording the accounts for the FWP (rather
than ulterior motives like profit, personal gain, politics, etc.).

*In some cases, the distance in time from the events may have
promoted honesty.

Limitations:
*The distance in time from events may have affected the accuracy
memories of the events described.

*Most of the people who conducted the interviews were white,

which may have limited what interviewees were willing to share.

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*The decisions of some interviewers in transcribing the interview

may have affected the accuracy of what they recorded; something
may have been lost in their attempt to recreate regional dialects
and pronunciations in writing.

*In some interviews, the transcriptions suggest that the interviewer

could have held patronizing views toward the interviewees. These
views could have affected what they heard, what they recorded,
and the relationship with the interviewee.

Given that many of the interviews were recorded by hand, the

interviewers may not have accurately recorded all that was said
either because they struggled to write down all that was said or
because they later reconstructed the conversation from memory.

The experiences of the interviewees only represent the years

leading up to the abolition of slavery, so the accounts are not good
evidence of slavery over a wide span of time.

e. Pass out the Going Deeper questions. Have students complete them in
groups and then discuss them as a class.

For Question 2, students should see that the gap in time between when
the interviews were conducted and the events the interviewees were
recalling could affect the reliability of the accounts. Memories can change
over time, and more than six decades had passed since the abolition of
slavery. It is possible that inaccuracies and distortions had crept into
interviewees memories over the years.

On the other hand, students should also see that the gap in time might
actually enhance the accuracy of the accounts if interviewees felt more
comfortable being honest decades after the events transpired. It is
possible that former slaves could have been willing to be more candid
about events long after the people described in the events are no longer
alive or were no longer a threat, particularly former slaveholders and
others who might harm them for telling the truth. William Colbert
(Document A), for example, goes on to say that the slaveholder who
abused his brother had already died. It is possible that William felt safer
being honest about the abuse his brother suffered decades after the
events than he may have been if interviewed nearer in time to the attack.

Question 3 asks students to consider how the race of the interviewer may
have affected the reliability of the accounts. Below are some
considerations to discuss:
Students should see that Tempie Herndon Durhams account
(Document B)recorded by a white interviewerportrayed slavery

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much more positively and used more racial epithets to refer to

African Americans than did Perry Lewis (Document C) who was
interviewed by a black interviewer. It is possible that the differences
in the interviews reflect a genuine difference in perspective
between the two interviewees. However, it seems more likely that
the race of the interviewer influenced what each person was willing
to share. Durham may have been reluctant to offer an honest
critique of slavery to a white interviewer. Durham lived in the South,
and many white Southerners at the time argued that slavery had
actually been beneficial for slaves. Durhams lifelong experiences
with racism and oppression may have led her to frame her answers
in a way that she thought would be safe to offer a white interviewer.
Conversely, Perry Lewis may have been more willing to respond
openly about slavery to an African American interviewer. (Note -
Some scholarship that supports the idea that the content of the
interviews was affected by the race of the interviewers. An analysis
by Paul Escott in Slavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-
century Slave Narratives, for example, found that people
interviewed by a white interviewer were more likely to describe
slavery in positive terms than those interviewed by African
American interviewers.)

Students may also note that Lewiss account was transcribed in

standard English, which could indicate that the interviewers viewed
the interviewees differently (discussed below).

Finally, students might notice that Durhams account refers to

African Americans in pejorative racial terms while Lewiss account
did not, which may be further evidence that Durham altered her
account for the white interviewer.

Question 4 asks students to consider how the decisions of the

interviewers when transcribing the interviews might affect how we interpret
the documents. Below are some issues to discuss:
For the first question, students should see that there may be
instances when an attempt to transcribe the patterns of speech
might represent the content of the interview more faithfully than if
the interviewer were to put the speech into his or her own words
and/or use more conventional spelling.

However, you may need to help students see how an interviewers

attempt to translate a regional dialect may be futile. As much
might be lost in translation as is captured.

In some cases, the translations may be patronizing to

interviewees and signal a lack of respect for those being

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interviewed. There are a wide variety of regional dialects and

pronunciations in the United States, but rarely are they spelled
differently in interviews. (Interviewers at the time didnt try to
capture FDRs upper class mid-Atlantic accent when they
transcribed interviews with him for print.) A lack of respect could
affect the reliability of the interview. It could color what the
interviewer hears (and records) and could affect what the
interviewee is willing to share (especially if they sense a lack of
respect from the interviewer).

3. Final Discussion. First, have students update their strengths and limitations list
from Question 1. Then engage them in a big-picture discussion about using
interviews as evidence of the past. Ask students how they might use these
accounts if they were writing a book on slavery. Overall, what can they tell us
about slavery? What other sources might they want to find if they were writing a
book about slavery in the United States?

4. Assessment. In addition to monitoring student learning and understanding during

the lesson, you may want to assess student learning later in the unit or on an
end-of-unit exam. One idea would be to use the following HAT from Beyond the
Bubble:

https://beyondthebubble.stanford.edu/assessments/perspective-slavery

This HAT presents students with an excerpt from a 1938 FWP interview with
Henry Nelson, who had been enslaved in Arkansas. It then asks students to
reason about the strengths and limitations of the document as evidence of the
past. You could use this HAT as an activity to spiral back to thinking about
historical interviews and get a sense of student learning. You could also build this
in to a broader assessment to gauge whether students have learned the skills
taught in this lesson and determine whether students need further instruction in
these skills.

Sources

Document A
Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 1, Alabama, Aarons-Young. to
1937, 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.010/?sp=88.

Document B
Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 11, North Carolina, Part 1,
Adams-Hunter. 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of
Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.111/?sp=289.

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Document C
Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 8, Maryland, Brooks-Williams.
1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.080/?sp=52.

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