• Project Timeline

• Introduction to the LOC collection (PDF)

• 1941 introduction to the LOC collection (PDF)

• Introduction to the Mississippi Narratives

• Instructions to the interviewers (PDF)

• Sample narratives

• Introduction to the Index

• Acknowledgements

• Foreword by Dr. Charles Joyner

Mississippi

Acknowledgments

The Deep South People's History Project, sponsor of the research that uncovered the Mississippi narratives and prepared them for publication, was generously supported by the Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation; we are extremely grateful for that support. We are also grateful for the warm encouragement we have received from the many people whose need for these materials is more urgent than our own; special thanks here to Imari A. Obadele, president of the provisional government of the Republic of New Afrika. Walter Collins’ occasional criticisms have been timely and on the mark. Jim Loewen's sense of urgency prodded us along.

Significant moral support was provided by many faculty members at Tougaloo College, Millsaps College, Rust College, the University of Mississippi, and Jackson State University who invited an unlettered historian to speak to their students about slavery and freedom, opportunities that furnished priceless critical feedback. Similar help was provided by the congregation of the First Unitarian Church in Jackson.

Our spirit was strengthened by the number of black students and teachers who attended the University of Mississippi symposium, “Slavery: A Bicentennial Perspective,” in October 1975 (addressed by Carl N. Degler, Eugene D. Genovese, David Brion Davis, Stanley L. Engerman, William K. Scarborough, John W. Blassingame, and Kenneth M. Stampp). They came to say that their history was too important to be entrusted to the historians and to suggest that white historians of slavery ought to develop a deeper concern for freedom. The number of white people who came to challenge racist interpretations of history was also encouraging.

We appreciate the help we have received from the entire staff of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, always cheerfully given despite the disruptiveness of our project to their routines. We particularly want to thank Carl Ray, former director of the library division, for relaxing his rules about photocopying. Caroline Allen, Clinton Bagley, JoAnn Bomar, Carrie Edmondson, Vernell Forest, Dwight Harris, Harriet Heidelberg, Tom Henderson, Hank Holmes, Michelle Hudson, Mamie Locke, Theresa Logue, Virginia (Mrs. Roy) Sims, and Ron Tomlin assisted us day in and day out without complaining.

Despite our gratitude, however, we have been grimly aware all along that the racism which has shaped every part of Mississippi's government for the past century is responsible for allowing a collection like this to deteriorate, unknown and unprocessed, for thirty-five years—the same government which has appropriated millions of dollars for the acquisition, processing, care, and publication of materials that bolster the white-supremacist past. Progress has been made during the past couple of years, particularly after the Mississippi Council on Human Relations issued its report, “Mississippi: Hardly an Equal Opportunity Employer,” in 1974: Patricia Carr Black, during her term as director of the Archives’ library division, initiated an affirmative action program both in hiring and in acquisition; Vernell Forest has processed the ex-slave narratives collected by the WPA with the loving attention they deserve.

No one should imagine that recent progress fell from the sky. The freedom struggles waged by black Mississippians and their allies during the 1960s were accompanied by a demand for the truth about their past. Negroes in American History by Bobbi and Frank Cieciorka was published by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for use in the movement's freedom schools. Other histories, such as the Southern Conference Educational Fund's Appalachian People's History Book, followed the example. Without those beginnings, our work would not have been possible.

Thanks to the staff of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for uncovering the materials that so many people thought had not survived.

We appreciate Joseph Borome's permission to reprint his edited version of the autobiography of Hiram Rhoades Revels, and the Daily World's permission to reprint Elizabeth Lawson's interview with George Washington Albright.

When Bennie G. Thompson, the mayor of Bolton, appointed me to direct the Bolton Bicentennial Project, “The Heritage of Black Mississippi in the Fight for Freedom,” he inadvertently helped spur this work to completion.

Throughout this essay, “I” means Ken Lawrence and “we” means Jan Hillegas, Ken Lawrence, and, by long distance, George Rawick. George has been a comrade and friend since my teenage years and taught me the ways in which the past shapes the future. Our friendship does not mean, however, that he bears any responsibility for my departures from accepted historical practice; I alone deserve the blame.

Search, Discovery and Editing -->