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Slave Narratives

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Link, Photograph of Spence Johnson Waco Texas interviewee

Spence Johnson, Waco, Texas

This guide was created to help students research slave narratives and their influence on American history and literature. Students will find numerous resources to explore in completing their research.

What are slave narratives? They are autobiographical accounts of men and women who had been enslaved. Antebellum slave narratives date back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and were written or dictated by fugitive or freed slaves. These narratives helped fuel the abolitionist movement prior to the American Civil War. Among post-war narratives some 2,300 accounts were recorded during the Great Depression by folklorists who worked for the Federal Government's Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress, American Memory Collection

An Introduction to Slave Narratives

Produced by ABC's Nightline, Found Voices: the Slave Narratives, offers an introduction to the WPA's project which recorded interviews with former slaves during the 1930's and 1940's.

*To view this video from off-campus, please enter your MCC email username and password when prompted.*

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