Weren't No Good Times

by Williams, Horace Randall

• ISBN13: 9780895872845
• ISBN10: 0895872846
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-02-01
• Publisher: Blair

Summary

From 1936 to 1938, the federal Writers' Project (FWP), a part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, hired writers, editors, and researchers to interview as many former slaves as they could find and document their lives during slavery. More than 2,000 former slaves in 17 states were interviewed. With Weren't No Good Times, John F. Blair, Publisher, continues its Real Voices, Real History series with selections from 46 of the 125 interviews now archived in the Library of Congress that were earmarked as interviews with Alabama slaves. Also included is an excerpt from Thirty Years a Slave, From Bondage to Freedom, a memoir written by Louis Hughes. This selection reveals a different aspect of the Alabama slavery experience because Hughes was hired out by his master to work at the Confederate salt works during the Civil War.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xiii
I Ain't Never Been a Slave	p. 3
Old Joe Can Keep His Two Bits	p. 7
Mules Be Eatin', and Niggers Be Eatin'	p. 11
They Planted the Silver in the Field	p. 16
Escapes Whipping	p. 18
Today's Folks Don't Know Nothin'	p. 25
Sho I Believes in Spirits	p. 34
I Runned Most of the Way	p. 37
A Conjure What Didn't Work	p. 39
The Yankees Was a Harricane	p. 43
We Et Like Li'l Pigs	p. 46
Cornshuckin' Was the Greates' Thing	p. 49
This Was That Long Ago	p. 52
Hongry for Punkin Pie	p. 62
I Had Many Masters	p. 66
The Patriarch Abraham Saw the Stars Fall	p. 70
How to Make Em "Teethe Easy"	p. 73
Cures and "Cunjer"	p. 76
Chasing Guinea Jim, the Runaway Slave	p. 81
Massa Had a Way of Looking at You	p. 87
Peter Had No Keys Ceptin' His'n	p. 92
These Uppity Niggers	p. 98
What I Keer About Bein' Free?	p. 100
I Loved to Pick That Box	p. 102
I Would Talk a Lot for a Dime	p. 104
Cabins As Far As You Could See	p. 107
In Slavery Time	p. 110
Ole Joe Had Real 'Ligion	p. 113
White Hen Is Heaps of Company	p. 117
Gittin' My Pension	p. 119
The Overseer's Mean	p. 128
I Heard Lincoln Set Us Free	p. 133
Sometime an Old Nigger Die	p. 139
Mad Bout Somep'n So They Had a War	p. 143
Us Gwine Walk Them Gold Streets	p. 147
Chillun Was Mannerable	p. 150
Hid Things They Ain't Never Found	p. 155
I Warn't No Common Slave	p. 157
The Court Jester	p. 160
I Can't Read No Writin'	p. 163
They Called Us McCullough's Free Niggers	p. 166
She Can Just Remember Her Husband's Name	p. 169
Homesick for Old Scenes	p. 172
Wed in the White Folks' Parlor	p. 175
Plantation Punishment	p. 178
Wealth in the Bodies and Souls of Men Was Slipping Away	p. 182
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