On Jordan's Stormy Banks: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Georgia

by Andrew Waters (Editor)

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project engaged jobless writers and researchers to interview former slaves about their experiences in bondage. Most of the interviewees were by then in their eighties and nineties, and their memories were soon to be lost to history. The effort was a huge success, eventually encompassing more than two thousand interviews and ten thousand pages of material across seventeen states. This collection presents the personal narratives of twenty-eight former Georgia slaves. As editor Andrew Waters notes, the “two ends of the human perspective―terror and joy” are often evident within the same interviews, as the ex-slaves tell of the abuses they endured while they simultaneously yearn for younger, simpler days. The result is a complex mix of emotions spoken out of a dark past that must not be forgotten. Andrew Waters is a writer and former editor. A native North Carolinian, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Honors in Creative Writing and received a graduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the executive director of the Spartanburg Area Conservancy in Spartanburg, SC.

Genres: History

103 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

Reviews

[82princess · Rating 5 out of 5]

IN this book On Jordan's Stormy Banks by Andrew Waters it has interviews with former slaves in Georgia. It interviews slaves and there outlooks on slavery. They tell what there favorite past times would be what there duties were and about there families and masters were
You read in history books how slavery was this and slavery was that,but when you read this book you get the true point of veiw from the slaves.Neal Upson from Athens Georgia talked about his days going to a white school and having a white teacher teach the slave chillun how to read and write in the back of his master's plantation. But there were other times when his daddy was suppose to be becoming a mail carrier and all the white folks told him if he carries the mail he'll be sorry. This a good book to tell you about the good and the bad things about slavery in the south.

[83fabulous · Rating 4 out of 5]

On Jordan's Stormy Banks, edited by Andrew Waters is a book that gives you a different take on slavery. No I am not saying that slavery is a good thing, but when you read the book you realize that they were not all treated so bad.
This book has many interviews of former slaves telling about thier life on the plantations in Georgia. Some of these people include Rachel Adams, Robert Shepord, Emma Coker, Randell Flag, and many more. When reading you find out that so many masters were kind to their slaves the unfairness came from the overseers.Most masters were loved so much by their slaves that after the slaves were set free they did not leave because they liked how they were living. As you read you began to understand more about slavery than you get from the text books.

[Toughlove · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, was good. It was not what I expected, but it still good. It showed people the not so violente side of slavery, as it was coming to an end.The storys, made you think about what was going through the peoples head as they were retelling the story of their lives. I did like the book, but I though that it was not really on subject. Most of the female stories, were about superstions, but the male stories were mostly about how they stayed with their masters, and most of them said that they were very nice to them, and thatthey never were whipped. I did not expect to read about how nice they were, but that is, and it was very informing, and interesting.