As the United States of America entered the worst economic depression of the 1900s, federal programs were created in an attempt to counteract, or at least soften, the economic hardships the country was facing. One such program, the Works Projects Administration, was instituted under Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic recovery program dubbed The New Deal. In the South, the WPA took a direction that was familiar to most southerners-slavery. While many slaves had passed on by the onset of the Great Depression, a few former slaves were around to tell their stories. Although segregation and numerous other Jim Crow laws littered the law books, under closer examination one can see that the lives of the average 1930s white southerner and ex-slave did not vary a considerable amount.
At the close of the Civil War, the social hierarchy of the South was turned upside down, both white and black. Prominent antebellum southern families were reduced to poverty all over the former Confederate States of America. Large cotton plantations were left in ruins as slaves left to pursue a way of life they had never known before-freedom. The mass departure of freed slaves occurred frequently in the months following the end of the Civil War. Dr. Fielding Ficklen, the great-grandfather of WPA writer Edward Ficklen, understood this fact first hand as seventy-three slaves walked off his plantation in Washington, Georgia, a small town in Wilkes County. The foundation in which the South class system was based upon for nearly two-hundred years, slavery, began to crumble almost immediately. Edward Ficklen would face the consequences of being a part of a former planter family even before his birth.1
White society was not the only society affected by the end of the Civil War. The status of the very group that emancipation strove to improve fell to its knees, buckling under the pressure of an uncertain future. The slave society of the "Old South" had a very specific and ordered class status. Every slave knew at the end of the day that they were slaves, but within that existed a social order based on house servants and field hands. To be a house servant was to be almost a part of the Master's family. House servants were always with the Master family, even in family portraits. To be a field hand, however, was to be just that. When these families walked away from a life of servitude they entered a life of equality among their own race that did not fully exist before emancipation.
In Oglethorpe County at the close of the War there lived a prominent slave family on the plantation of Henry Hull-The Coles. Mrs. Betsy Cole was a cook, along with her sister. Betsy's husband, Lucius, was the family carriage driver. Compared to the cotton field hands a few hundred yards away from the master's house, the Coles were royalty. Even their son John, born in 1851, was a notch above the common field hands. In 1865, they walked out of the Hull house free and no better or worse than any of the other slaves coming out of the fields the very same day. To the field workers, freedom was a step up. For families like the Coles, freedom meant leaving the "Big House" and staying in shantytowns and working sometimes harder than they ever had to before to eat and survive.2
Life was not always what John Cole hoped it to be. After the end of the Civil War, he walked away from Hull Plantation and returned to work for twenty years unpaid for his former master. A life of freedom was not what John Cole received. For slaves like Cole, the war brought about broken promises. By 1880, Cole was living in Athens with a white physician, Joseph Carlton, his family and two other former slaves. Sometime later, he married his wife, Camilla. John worked as a blacksmith until the day he died in 1936 at the age of eighty-six.3
The social status of the Coles was flipped upside down at the end of the Civil War. The decline of the African-American slave society paralleled that of the white planter class occurring at the same time throughout the South. Almost as soon as the war ended, the Ficklen's began their economic and social decline to level out with the other white southerners around them. It is ironic that seventy years later two people from backgrounds that could not be any more different, but yet so alike, find themselves on Billups Street in Athens, Georgia talking and writing about life as a poor, ex-slave. Both men come from families that were prominent in their own societies seventy years before, and now sit together in early 1936, both struggling to make ends meet. Considering Edward's family background, it would be unlikely that he would be interviewing a former slave under a government program set up to help out those struggling to make ends meet. 4
Edward Bounds Ficklen was born to Fielding Hill Ficklen and Celeste Bounds on July 5, 1910 in Washington, Georgia. Edward was the fourth of eight children. At the time of his birth, Fieding Hill worked as a cashier at a Washington city bank. By the end of the 1920s, economic depression was looming over the nation. As part of the banking end of the economic sector, the Ficklens were hit hard. By 1930, Fielding was out of a job supporting a wife and eight children. At some point, it can be assumed that Edward pursued and obtained his law degree before 1934. In that year Edward operated a post-graduate training facility under the title of "opportunity schools" to teach law, French, Spanish and typing to help the community become more inclined to find jobs during the Great Depression.5
Needing some sort of financial support, not only for himself but also for the family, Edward applied for the Works Projects Administration as a writer. He was assigned to be a slave interviewer. Edward was sent to Athens, Georgia to interview an eighty-six year old ex-slave, John Cole. Edward's first signs of a unique writing ability emerged through the storybook depiction of Cole's slave life.6
On January 2, 1939 Edwards father died after a short-term illness. By his father's death, the Ficklen children were all of adult age, although some still lived at home perhaps still attending school. Through census reports and other sources, it is clear that Edward had attended school within the last year making him of college age. However, no records of enrollment could be found and he still remained at home. Celeste could not support herself or the remaining children at home. Shortly after her husband's death, Celeste filed for a twelve-month support from Fielding's economically fragile estate.7
After America was propelled into World War II in 1941, the Ficklen boys--Fielding Hill, Jr., Edward Bounds, William Merriwether, and Osborne Bounds-followed the paths of many young American men and joined the army. Only three of the four would return. On, December 5, 1942 Osborne's plane was shot down over Bordeaux, France. Two months prior, the Washington News Reporter ran an article detailing Edward's current status in the U.S. military: Edward was a Private First Class stationed in Indiantown Town Gap in Pennsylvania. In that same month, Edward won a writing contest for the best slogan offered by the Philadelphia Ledger, "Uncle Sam says, it's two minutes to twelve, don't wait till midnight, buy a bond." Edward earned twenty-five dollars for his entry and promptly sent it home to his poor mother. Edward frequently returned home to visit Celeste in her elderly years. By December 1942, Edward was on his way to Mississippi State College for Army Administrator Officer Candidate School. Two months later in February of 1943, Edward is reported in the News Reporter as a Corporal.8
Little is known of Edward after February 1943. It can be speculated that he returned to Washington sometime around the end of the war in 1945. From here Edward had many options to take. He was only thirty-five and had a good portion of his life still ahead of him. The News-Reporter reported, on several occasions, that the Ficklen sons came home to visit their mother and that a good deal of their life was devoted to their mother. The most likely course that Edward took for the rest of his life did not occur until 1953. On July 12, 1953 Celeste Bounds died at the age of seventy-five. Considering the closeness and affection that the Ficklens felt for their mother, this in almost all certainty had a devastating affect on Edward. It is after 1953 that it can be speculated that Edward moved to the place where his writing talents could be put to greater use-Los Angeles, California.9
While in Los Angeles, he continued writing and began a collection of rare books. Towards the end of his life, Edward was placed into a retirement home in Los Angeles. Edward Bounds Ficklen's life came to a silent end on June 20, 1981.10
On one hand it could have been very difficult for Edward to enter a home of a former slave knowing that his family had formerly owned a fairly large amount of slaves, which could of easily of been Cole himself. On the other hand, Edward was not entering a world unlike his own. He traveled forty miles to visit the "vine-clad cottage" where Mr. Cole lived. The towns of Washington and Athens were both small towns with many of the same small town attitudes. During the Jim Crow period in the South, small towns were centered on many of the same ideals and racial attitudes. Even though some white citizens might feel themselves as a higher status than that of their black counterparts, the interracial cooperation that existed benefited the black community to better themselves in ways that perhaps neither fully understood at the time.11
A change in racial attitudes can be observed around the end of World War I. After the war, author Ulrich B Philips released a now infamous book, American Negro Slavery, in which he all but defended the "peculiar institution". Schools around the United States began to take Philips' work as the gospel and began teaching ideas that furthered the so called "plantation myth". He made the argument that perhaps slavery was not as cruel and degrading as northern white society made the rest of the country believe. Philips, himself, was a southerner and had personal interests in defending his home. The outcry in the African-American society from pioneer black scholars, such as W.E.B. DuBois and Carter G. Woodson, entered the nation into a whole new era.12
Thanks to the early African-American scholars, the country began to read and take a genuine interest into the African-American culture. This culture was created through the bonds of slavery and amazed and fascinated white middle class America. During the Harlem Renaissance in New York, white America almost instantly took notice of art forms such as jazz, mural paintings, poetry and folk literature. It was at this time that minor projects directed at documenting the lives of former slaves started to arise in various places around the nation. It was not, however, until the Great Depression of the 1930s that a wide spread federal program was set up to document the stories of ex-slaves.13
In the New Deal, President Roosevelt included an economic recovery program called the Works Projects Administration. A specific sector of this program affected many young writers such as Edward Ficklen-the Federal Writers Project. The program was designed to aid unemployed writers, among others, to receive jobs during the current economic decline. The Federal Writers Project allowed ordinary people talk about their experiences and the various paths trekked by them. The United States felt that the not so extraordinary lives of the average American needed to be documented and what better way to rebuild the economy than to pay people to write about it.14
During the depression era of the 1930s, "racial uplift" was a key developmental component of the African-American community. The basic thought was to build "parallel institutions" that mimicked white society, which in time would improve the African-American society. In most small towns, like Athens and Washington, black communities developed their own middle class consisting of doctors, lawyers, teachers, business owners, and preachers. The Jim Crow-era laws, however, hampered every African-American attempt to move up the social ladder.15
The idea of "racial uplift" presented problems for some African-Americans, while keeping the segregationist white community content. For the African-Americans, "racial uplift" never challenged segregation; it compromised with Jim Crow. African-Americans also thought of this policy as never seeking to improve the lives of African-Americans by seeking equal political rights. The segregationist whites thought of racial contact as undermining white supremacy, so they were fully content in keeping separate public institutions. Both sides failed to realize that both were learning from each other and changing their own societies to adapt to each other.16
A lot can be speculated about racial attitudes and economic status from reading a 1930s WPA slave narrative. It can be difficult to really grasp the intent of the former slave in his perspective of his early life. For a lot of poor African-Americans in the 1930s, WPA interviewers were viewed as possible economic relief from the United States government. It has been documented that some might have even embellished and "improved" stories of their early lives as slaves, thinking that in some way the United States government would improve their current economic status. For instance, John Cole repeatedly refers to Edward Ficklen as the "gov'mint man" and connects Ficklen to the "gov'mint" men who freed him back in the 1860s. Perhaps Cole was thinking by drawing a connection between Edward and the men that freed him so long before, it might put Cole in a favorable position with Edward who was the representative of the American government. Cole also refers to the union soldiers in a very child-like manner when he says, "Yes, the gov'mint men with the blue uniforms and the shiny brass buttons" Cole could be attempting to perpetuate the paternalistic view that most slave masters had of their slaves onto Edward to receive government aid. It is unclear, however, if the words used are Cole's own or Edward's.17
It is very evident throughout the paper to see Edward Ficklen's attitudes toward the African-American race. Edward tends to focus more on the good times that John Cole faced as a slave, summing up Cole's experience as, "no, it was not a bad life." In reference to John Cole being freed, Edward refers to John Cole and other slaves as "his (Cole's) kind." With this statement, it can be speculated that Edward thought of the African-American race almost as a separate species. Again, in Ficklen's own words he summarizes the weekend experience for a slave:
Sunday you could go to the colored church (with benefit of white clergy) or you could go to the white church just like real class except you sat in the rear.
Obviously, Edward feels that having a white clergy would be much more beneficial to the slave population than having one of their own. On the other hand, they could experience "real class" and attend the white church. There is one comment, however, that overwhelming brings out Edward Ficklen's thoughts of the African race. Edward concludes his paper by stating that it is "better for any nigger, anywhere, to bow low to death." It is very striking that a government paper could include such an obvious and blatant sign of racism stating that is better for an African-American to essentially die than live at all. Leading up to this statement, there is no reference of Cole stating anywhere that African's should give up and die.18
After reading through the slave narrative written by Edward Ficklen, I could see an obvious racial undertone to his writing. Perhaps, he did feel himself higher than John Cole. Perhaps, Edward Ficklen felt this way because his family once owned slaves. Or perhaps, it was merely society and his upbringing that made racial comments infiltrate and insert themselves in various parts of the narrative. With the racial comments aside, Edward seems to have led a very lonely life. No records of marriage were ever found. At the time of his death, three siblings survived. No survivors, however, lived in California. His life dream of being a writer made me curious as to why he kept pursuing something that seemed to have evaded him his entire life. Sure he won twenty-five dollars for a slogan contest during World War II, and it is true that he wrote for the government in his slave narrative, but what about the fame that he most likely pursued with his move to Los Angeles. His obituary claims that he was a writer but no one will ever read what he wrote.
I could not help but draw a connection to a song written by The Beatles entitled "Eleanor Rigby". In the song, Father McKenzie lives his life as he should but no one really cares. Father McKenzie writes a sermon that no one will hear. So, The Beatles ask, why does he even bother? The same can be said for Edward Ficklen. He moved to Los Angeles and spent his remaining days writing as a single, lonely man. There is no telling what he wrote or when he wrote it. There is no record of his published works. Maybe Edward Bounds Ficklen never cared and maybe he was fine with that. On the other hand, maybe he moved to Los Angeles to get a fresh start and that new start never happened the way he imagined it. No matter how one looks at the life of Edward Ficklen, it is obvious no one ever will read his sermon that he worked so hard to create.19
The same can be said for former slaves like John Cole of Athens. As a young boy, John Cole walked away from the chains of bondage and expected a bright new life when he moved to Athens. John Cole never received that chance. Both John and Edward are tied together in more ways than they are different. Both worked their entire lives doing what they had to do in order to survive. They started out their lives in families of high social status in their respective races and ended their lives elderly men thinking and knowing that "in the morning-time one lives, but death always comes in afternoon."20
1. Manuscript United States Slave Schedules, 1860, Georgia, Wilkes
2.Edward B. Ficklen, "A Slave Remembers" WPA Slave Narrative Project, Georgia Narratives, vol. 3: 226-230, 8 May 1937 [book online]; available at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=234&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_H142::; Internet.
3.Slave Narrative, 1935 Athens Directory, Atlanta: R.L. Polk and Company, Publishers; 1937 Athens Directory, Atlanta: R.L. Polk and Company, Publishers; Manuscript United States Census, 1880, Georgia, Wilkes,http://www.familysearch.org
4.Edward B. Ficklen
5.Family Genealogy internet site available at http://www.ficklin-fickling.org/ustrees/pafg748.htm; Internet; Robert M. Willingham. The History of Wilkes County, Georgia. Wilkes County: Wilkes Publishing Company, 2002
6.Edward B. Ficklen
7.Manuscript United States Census, 1930, Georgia, Wilkes, available at http://www.familysearch.org; Internet; http://www.ficklin-fickling.org/ustrees/pafg748.htm;Internet; "Legal News" Washington News Reporter, January 1939.
8."News From the War" Washington News Reporter, October 1942, sec A, p. A1; "News From the War" Washington News Reporter, December 1942, sec A, p. A1; "News From the War" Washington News Reporter, February 1943, sec A, p. A1
9.News Reporter October 1942, December 1942, February 1943. Social Security Death Index, available at http://www.familysearch.org; Internet.
10."Edward Bounds Ficklen Obituary" Washington News-Reporter, 9 June 1981, sec. A, p. 11A.
11.No author, Remembering Jim Crow, ed. William H. Chafe, Raymono Gavins, and Robert Korstad (New York: New York Press, 2001), 206; Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000, (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001): 160-179.
12.Norman R. Yetman, "The Background of the Slave Narrative Collection," American Quarterly, Vol. 19 No. 3 (Autumn, 1967): 534-553.
13."The Background of the Slave Narrative Collection".
14.Norman R. Yetman, "Ex-Slave Interviews and the Historiography of Slavery." American Quarterly, Vol. 36 No. 2 (Summer, 1984): 181-210.
15.A. Fairclough
16.A. Fairclough
17.Edward B. Ficklen
18.Edward B. Ficklen
19.The Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby"; "Edward Bounds Ficklen Obituary"
20.Edward B. Ficklen