Steal Away: Freed Slaves Stories of Life on the Plantation, Mississippi

by FWP, Tiffany Lee (Editor)

These first-person accounts of people born as slaves are extremely heart-breaking, unintelligible, and yet, highly informative. Clara Young's recounting of her pregnant 17-year-old cousin being beaten to death by an overseer and everyone being afraid that they may meet the same fate illuminates not only the horrifying conditions of slavery, but the resilience of a people who, though traumatized daily, continued to hold on to the reigns of life. Prince Johnson's account of riding with the Ku Klux Klan to restore 'order' after the Civil War is incomprehensible and is but one illustration of how a system predicated on profiteering from the treatment of humans as cattle can so easily subvert the views of rightness and order –– even by the victims of said system. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). These interviews appear in their original format as recorded by the interviewer. The only change by the editor is the addition of the photos of Mollie Williams, Tom Wilson, and Rev. James Singleton which were unable to be seen in the original document.

183 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 30, 2019