Jenny Boone
March 5, 2004
Interviews taken by the Federal Writers’ Project workers during the 1930s made it possible for the first time to rewrite the history of the Old South from the slaves’ perspectives. As part of New Deal-era economic aid programs, the project created a context in which white interviewers and black interviewees could sit down and have a conversation – an event which, in the public sphere at that time, would have been unacceptable because of class, gender, and racial boundaries. The narratives, which on the surface are accounts of slave life, became transformed into chronicles of life during the Great Depression.1
The Federal Writer’s Project began as an effort by the federal government during the New Deal era to provide jobs to people struggling with unemployment during The Great Depression. The South was hit hardest by the Depression as a result of its already sluggish economy and its dependence on agriculture, and even President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the South the “nation’s number one problem”. As a result, thousands of Southerners, white and black, lost their jobs, homes, and businesses. The Depression had an impact on every person’s life in one way or another, and reactions to the economic hardship of the nation ranged from those who were only slightly inconvenienced to those who couldn’t even feed their families. Blacks, who depended primarily on domestic or agricultural work and had little economic opportunities to begin with, were the hardest hit by the Depression and were by far the most impoverished group in southern society. Included among the ranks of the South’s poorest citizens were elderly black men and women who had experienced both slavery and freedom. The task assigned to the WPA writers was to interview and record the testimonials of this last generation of African Americans living in the South who had been enslaved. The qualifications required for employment in the project were often as simple as “anyone who could write English”. Consequently, teachers, lawyers, architects, and college graduates were hired alongside experienced and accomplished authors. The interviewers were overwhelmingly middle-aged white women, and the interviewees were, of course, elderly black people; a strange situation for both groups during a time of severe segregation in the Jim Crow South.2
The city of Augusta, Georgia was no different than most Southern cities in the way the WPA interviewers and interviewees fit into its social structure. Augusta’s location in central Georgia, with its foundation on the Savannah River, made it both an agricultural and manufacturing center. Surrounding rural farming areas in both Georgia and South Carolina depended on the city as a trade market and on the business of the Augusta Mills. As in most Southern cites, Augusta’s class distinctions were evident in all areas of society. Upper class whites were predominately business owners, professionals, or wealthy inheritors, and usually owned a significant amount of land as well as large homes in the city. People of the middle class, from which the WPA interviewers were most often drawn, were usually involved in white-collar work; these included shopkeepers, landlords, and employees in other clerical occupations. Lower class whites were usually blue-collar mill workers who lived in tiny shacks surrounding the mills, and blacks were generally domestic workers or laborers who lived in the poorest of conditions and rented their lands and homes from white landlords. Although blacks were the poorest Augustans, before the Depression they controlled a thriving black district called The Golden Blocks, which boasted several businesses and restaurants owned by blacks. The class system was disrupted, however, by the Stock Market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Depression of the 1930s. Many people became unemployed because of business failures, and this lead to increased job competition between people of different classes. Upper- or middle-class whites were willing to work for much lower paying jobs that had until recently been occupied by the lower classes or even blacks. The wide gap between upper-class and lower-class standards of living during the 1930s are evident in the fact that Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road, a novel supposedly describing the plight of the poor on Augusta’s Tobacco Road, was published only two years before Bobby Jones founded the Augusta National, a high-class golf club and tournament for wealthy white men. 3
A middle-class author from Augusta, Ruby Lorraine Radford was a perfect example of a typical WPA interviewer. Born into a middle-class family from South Carolina, she lived in Augusta throughout her entire adult life. Her sister Josie was a teacher at a local elementary school; she lived with her in a small house on John’s Road in Augusta, which in the 1930s was a middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs. At times, the city directories of Augusta show that several more people, mostly relatives, occupied the same house during the Depression. Neither of the girls ever married, and their mother was a widow. Ruby was mainly a children’s author, writing some fantasy books such as Rose- Colored Glasses, but mostly she wrote biographies of important historical figures aimed at first-time readers, like Robert E. Lee, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and James Edward Oglethorpe: A Colony Leader, and were mostly published later in her life. She also wrote a few religion-based novels; testaments to her Southern Baptist upbringing. Her writing was of course, oversimplified for the child audience, but came from a definite southern viewpoint. The Radford sisters, being unmarried women, had to work to support both themselves as well as their elderly mother. During the Depression, Ruby was hired by the WPA Federal Writer’s Project to interview slaves in the areas surrounding Augusta. She often interviewed with two other ladies, Edith Bell Love and Maude Barregan, who were her friends and fellow WPA interviewers. In Augusta, the WPA officials often encouraged female interviewers to travel in groups, a precaution taken to ensure white women’s safety in predominantly black areas. 4
Ruby Radford’s experiences during the depression were not unique; they were common throughout many middle-class white families. Without a male provider, The Radfords were left with few alternatives, and the family of women was forced to find work. Because they were the traditional breadwinners, men typically were the receivers of most of the financial aid provided by the New Deal during the Depression era. Their dependence on male wage earners profoundly influenced how women viewed the depression. When required to find employment because of the lack of a male provider and to make ends meet, a women would view the Depression much differently than a woman whose husband was the one competing for work or whose family was wealthy. If she had children, a mother would have probably stayed home to perform her duties to her family rather than search for a job. When deciding whether or not to seek employment, women weighed the effects her employment would have on her family and other areas of her own life, as well as the opinions of her family members and views on what was socially acceptable. Women had far fewer employment options than men during this time period. While men could perform a variety of somewhat well-paying jobs, women were socially constrained to low-paying service or clerical work, and as was the case for the Radford family, the women usually pooled their earnings together to support each other. Men suffered and benefitted in some of the same ways as women, but men often had better opportunities than women for more varied and lucrative occupations before the Depression, and therefore were better off during the Depression.5
Racial attitudes are key points to discuss when examining the social contexts evident in the slave narratives. In the Jim Crow South, the black and white races were kept strictly segregated based on the belief that the members of the white race were naturally dominant over blacks. Whites believed that by keeping the two races separate and minimizing racial contact, they could “maintain law, order, and stability, thereby allowing the two races to develop and establish their own identities at their own pace”. During the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, white southerners used every means possible to maintain the separation of the races, and therefore their own supremacy. From a white person’s prospective, the generations of blacks born into freedom were too “uppity”; the whites, therefore, did everything in their power to maintain control and keep blacks in the lower ranks of society. Racial segregation was rampant in all parts of life in the South, whether it was for public transportation, restaurants, parks, or any other public area. Blacks were restricted to the “Negro Section” unless they were accompanying a white person as a servant. In such cases the situation of superior and inferior had to be evident. 6
The interviews were handled in a particular fashion that illustrated proper race relations during the 1930s. Racial etiquette of segregation in the 1930s required blacks to refrain from saying anything that might upset whites, especially white women. Blacks were often hesitant to share such personal experiences with white strangers, either for fear of retaliation or simply because of the fact that white people would misinterpret their words. However, some were more than willing because they viewed their visitors as representatives of the New Deal government, who could perhaps help with their impoverished situations. Because of the depression, most of the former slaves were penniless and dependent upon the aid of family, white people, or government officials, and perhaps poverty drove people to say what they thought the government wanted to hear. 7 Zora Neale Hurston, one of the few African American WPA writers, said of thoughts of a black interviewee:
The narratives are an excellent source for information on how elderly black people actually lived during the Depression. Being black and elderly in the Jim Crow-era South had double the negative consequences. Older people found it hard to secure places in the competitive job market – they were often passed over for jobs because younger, more physically able people were hired at much higher rates than the elderly. The weight of the economic troubles of The Great Depression had a tremendous effect on the former slaves’ lives, and as the interviewers asked them whether or not their lives were better during or after slavery, several factors played into their answers. The ex-slaves were generally very poor, elderly black men and women who usually lived alone and in relative poverty. 9
During the Depression, blacks were the first to be fired and the last to be hired, and most made it through the Depression by performing domestic work or other low-wage jobs that whites did not take. The ex-slaves worked extremely hard with little or nothing to show for it, so it is no surprise that they looked back on the days of slavery, when their masters were responsible for their well-being and regular meals, as “the good ole days”. Many of the freedmen were quite outspoken about how well they had eaten as slaves – after all, at least the slave rations had been regular. They would dwell on the subject of food for a good portion of the interview; this reflected the hardships and frequent hunger they faced during the Depression. From the ex-slave’s view, slavery and freedom were “both bad when you can’t eat”. 10
As the interviewers were Southern whites, the question of whether the interviewee thought that slavery or freedom was better was asked the most often, and the interviewers recorded that most of them looked back on slavery with fond memories and regarded their former masters with great love. One of the former slaves interviewed by Miss Radford, Willis Bennefield, described a scene in which his former master had cried while begging him to stay on his plantation. Former slaves often wished to see their masters again, a trend which was used as evidence to support the claim that slaves and masters often developed very personal relationships. This claim was commonly used by southern writers to discredit the tales of the horrors of slavery. Most likely, ex-slaves longed for their former owners because they desperately needed someone to take care of them, and the care they had received from their owners was probably the most aid from a white person they had ever received. They may have also regarded their lives as better during slavery simply because they were much younger and more able to obtain the things they needed. Sometimes because of their age and limited resources they were unable to take full advantage of being free. The Great Migration of southern blacks to northern areas also would have had a profound impact on the elderly ex-slaves. Their children or other family members whom they depended on moved to northern cities in great numbers during this time period, leaving the elder generation alone both economically and socially. Compared to their lives during slavery when they were surrounded by loved ones, fed regularly, and taken care of, their lives during the Depression were lonely and full of hardship. The former slaves did not long for slavery itself, and when they answered the interviewer’s questions, they often made it clear that their answers were to be placed in the context of their lives during the Depression. 11
The writers, like other white southerners, used the narratives to offer a view of their Old South society as superior in many ways to the Depression era society. Whether they meant to or not, the white interviewers, who often held the stereotype that blacks were less intelligent and childlike, spoke in a patronizing manner to the blacks and in the interviews went to great lengths to point out their “black” characteristics, including their manner of speech, their clothes, and the conditions of the homes they lived in. The southern narratives almost always discussed the black community in the third person, and constantly referred to the African Americans as an outside force separate from southern society. Whites took for granted what blacks saw as only the hollow outer shell of a superficial society that had been forced upon them, one that did not reflect their personal realities. 12
The narratives are considered flawed by some historians because of the liberties that the interviewers and editors took with the transcripts. It is quite possible that parts of the interviews were edited from their original states or deleted altogether, or that the interviewers were encouraged by their superiors to act with caution in including embarrassing or overly-revealing testimony. The narratives were supposed to be true, but at the same time adhere to proper race relations at the time. The writers used their personal discretions in deciding what to put in or leave out of the interviews, sometimes editing out the parts of the narratives that did not fit into their own consciousness of black society. 13
By using primary resources and researching the background of the Depression and its effects on the South, it was easy to place both Ruby Radford and the ex-slaves into the social atmosphere of the Jim Crow era. Their conflicting roles in Augustan society not only dictated much of their attitudes towards each other, but were also apparent in that the class, gender, and racial roles of both parties affected what was actually recorded in the narratives. My research shows that by studying one portion of history, one can uncover a new perspective on an entirely different theme. Not only are the slave narratives an account of former slaves’ experiences in the antebellum South; they are also an indicator of the quality of life and varying political, social and economic situations during the Great Depression.
NOTES
1.
Stephanie J. Shaw, “Using the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives to Study the Impact of the Great Depression,” Journal of Southern History Vol. 69 No. 3 (Aug 2003), in America: History and Life [database on-line], GALILEO; accessed January 30, 2004, 624.
2.
David L Carlton and Peter A. Coclani, Confronting Southern Poverty in the Great Depression (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 1996), 1; Julia Kirk Blackwelder, Women of the Depression (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984), 26; Carlton and Coclani, 9; Sharon Ann Musher, “Contesting the Way The Almighty Wants It: Crafting Memories of Ex-Slaves in the Slave Narrative Collection,” American Quarterly 53.1 (2001), in America: History and Life [database on-line], UMI-Proquest, GALILEO; accessed January 30, 2004, 5; Christine Bold, The WPA Guides: Mapping America (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 19-20; Jerrold Hirsch, Portrait of America: A Cultural History of the Federal Writers’ Project (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 154.
3.
Carlton and Coclani, 52-54; John Mills, “Golden Blocks had Restaurants, Banks, and Other Businesses,” Augusta Chronicle Online; available from http://www.augustachronicle.com/history/blocks.html 4. Manuscript, Census of the United States: 1930, Georgia, Richmond County, (University of Georgia Library, Athens, Georgia; Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), microfilm edition, p. 255, 8301; Polk’s Augusta Richmond Co., GA City Directory, Vol. 1925. (Richmond: R.L. Polk & Co., Publishers, 1925), 770; Polk’s Vol. 1940, 299; Polk’s Vol. 1970, 413; “Deaths and Funerals,” The Augusta Chronicle, 8 July 1971, sec. 3D; Ruby Lorraine Radford, Rose Colored Glasses (Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Pub. House, 1970); Radford, Dwight D. Eisenhower (New York: Putnam, 1970); Radford, Robert E. Lee (New York: Putnam, 1973); Radford, James Edward Oglethorpe: Colony Leader (Champaign, Illinois: Garrard Publishing Co., 1968); Ruby Lorraine Radford, “Slavery. Compilation,” Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938, Vol. 4, pt. 4, p 308-353, in American Memory; available from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mesnbib:1:./temp/~ammem_1uMn:: 5. Blackwelder, 26, 60, 120; Shaw, 637.
6. John D. Smith, When Did Southern Segregation Begin? (New York: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2001), 5-8, 162
7. Shaw, 626.
8. Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men; available from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/introduction.html 9. Shaw, 627-628, 639-642.
10. Shaw, 626, 631-632, 634.
11. Rachel Sullivan, “Rachel Sullivan,” interview by Ruby Lorraine Radford, Maude Barregan, and Edith Bell Love, WPA Slave Narrative Project, Georgia Narratives, Vol. 4, pt. 4, in American Memory; available from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=044/mesn044.db&recNum=229&itemLink=D?mesnbib:3:./temp/~ammem_1uMn:: 12. Hirsch, 154-155, 188, 192.
13. Shaw, 624; Musher, 2-6.
The Negro, in spite of his open-faced laughter, his seeming acquiescence, is particularly evasive. You see we are a polite people and do not say to our questioner, “Get Out of Here!”. We smile and tell him or her something that satisfies the white person because, knowing so little about us, he doesn’t know what he is missing.8