Summer Reading Spectacular #2

Today, in the midst of a boisterous (but short-lived) thunderstorm that knocked out the power in the neighbourhood, I finished another book (sheltered on the porch from the storm).

My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk About Slavery, is a selection of 21 oral histories from former slaves in North Carolina. Originally collected as part of the Federal Writers' Project, Slave Narratives, these stories have been selected and edited by Belinda Hurmence. What makes them particularly fascinating (apart from the raw, first-hand narratives in and of themselves) is in the wide variety of attitudes which the former slaves (mostly in their eighties and nineties when interviewed) towards their experiences both as slaves and in the days following.

I was struck by a few things.

1. Good people can be found in the worst of situations, even among the "bad guys". Several slaves spoke of masters who treated them with dignity and compassion even while acknowledging that others were not so lucky. For some, though in a corrupt system which sought to degrade them, forged genuine, close bonds with their "masters".

2. Bad people can be found among the "good guys". Some of the Yankees were not nice to the people they were campaigning to free.

3. As often seems to be the case, the "heroes" rushed in to right a wrong and didn't really think ahead to plan what comes next. The Yankees marched through, set the slaves free, and then left them with next-to-nothing with which to pick up the pieces and start their new lives. In the words of Patsy Michener in the book, "Slavery was a bad thing, and freedom, of the kind we got, with nothing to live on, was bad. Two snakes full of poison." Not that that kind of thing would happen today, would it? Would it? Hmmm...

4. The N-Word has a complicated history.