Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume IX, Mississippi Narratives

by United States. Work Projects Administration

"Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves" is a collection compiled between 1936 and 1938 by the Federal Writers' Project. Over 2,000 interviews with formerly enslaved people across seventeen states resulted in more than 10,000 typed pages preserving their life stories. While these narratives offer invaluable firsthand accounts, historians debate whether white interviewers' presence influenced how subjects shared their experiences during Jim Crow America, making the collection both a treasured historical resource and contested territory.