Racism and The Black American Experience: Personal Accounts of Black Americans

"Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. 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). At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. In 2000-2001, with major support from the Citigroup Foundation, the Library digitized the narratives from the microfilm edition and scanned from the originals 500 photographs, including more than 200 that had never been microfilmed or made publicly available. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress.

"The narrator of Recollections (1838) is an unnamed slave who was born near Charleston, South Carolina, around the year 1816. He was owned by a widow who hired him out on neighboring plantations periodically until he was fourteen, when the widow died and he was inherited by her son, Alfred Smith. The narrator stayed with Smith for five years and then was sold to Davey Cohan, "a Jew who lived on Ashley River, about 12 miles from Charleston." After two years with Cohan, the narrator ran away following a severe beating intended to extort information about hog meat that another slave had stolen..."

The personal accounts of former slaves were incredibly important in strengthening the case for abolition, as they brought to light the harsh realities of the system of transatlantic enslavement. They not only reflect, on an individual and personalised level, general patterns of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, but also bring into relief and humanise the experiences of the vast majority of individuals whose lives were never recorded and are only seen as statistics."
NOTE: This site is archived but not updated.

"For much of the 20th Century, African Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal. The system was called Jim Crow. In this documentary, Americans—black and white—remember life in the Jim Crow times. ."

Two narratives from Black slaves
"Boyrereau Brinch, enslaved black soldier in the American army, narrative selections
•Boston King, fugitive slave in the British army, narrative selections History Matters

"The 93rd’s story is one of overcoming obstacles. Most military units only need to battle the enemy; the 93rd had to battle hatred and discrimination at home, a white-dominated military establishment that didn’t want them, and officers that didn’t want to lead them. Worst of all, the 93rd had to fight the widespread belief that black soldiers were not capable of performing with exemplary courage on the battlefield."

"Even before the American Revolution, African Americans served in the military. Through World War II, however, they generally served in segregated units. Despite inequality, they served for a variety of reasons—including patriotism, adventure, and a desire to prove their loyalty and claim first-class citizenship...In 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order mandating the desegregation of the armed forces. The process took time, and the armed forces did not fully desegregate until the end of the Korean War (1950–1953). With this step, the military became one of the first large institutions in the United States to desegregate, gaining a reputation as a relatively progressive organization."

"On Monday, January 24, 1910, the Iowa City Press Citizen presented its readers with a curious headline: “Ex-Slave Dies During Prayer.” The ensuing article, situated just to the left of the daily markets, proclaimed that the...angel of death bent low Friday evening and called a humble soul as she knelt in evening prayer. Queen Victoria Seay, an ex-slave, and for forty years a resident of Muscatine, was stricken as she knelt by her bedside and as she framed her hearts (sic) supplications to the Most High. With her prayers but half finished the spirit took its flight and the body fell backwards on the floor.
She was praying for forgiveness of her sins and in her prayer breathed thankfulness for life and for her home and loved ones.
Ms. Seay was born in Virginia and at the time of her death was 66 years of age. For 22 years she was a slave. Later she came to Muscatine where she has since resided. Her husband and six children survive her." The silence shown here is Queen Victoria's death is marginalized and presented by the local paper as a stereotype.

"In 1828, Louisa Picquet (1828-1896) was born near Columbia, South Carolina to fifteen year old Elizabeth Ramsey, a quadroon slave, and John Randolph, Ramsey's white master, which made her an octoroon, or an individual with one black and seven white grandparents. At about two months old, Picquet and Ramsey were sold to David R. Cook from Jasper County, Georgia. When Cook got in trouble with creditors he fled with his slaves to Mobile, Alabama. Here, Picquet was hired out by Cook as a nurse and domestic help to a Mr. "Bachelor" whose wife ran the boarding house where Cook stayed. To settle his debts, the creditors made Cook sell his slaves, so at thirteen, Picquet was separated from her mother, who was sold to Colonel Albert Clinton Horton of Wharton, while Picquet went to New Orleans with Mr. John Williams. Williams made Picquet his concubine and she bore him four children, but only two survived enslavement."

"Lucy A. Delaney (1830-ca. 1890s) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Polly Crocket and her husband. Although Polly Crocket had once been a free woman, she was kidnapped from her home in Illinois and sold as a slave to Major Taylor Berry. Berry arranged for his slaves to be freed upon his and his wife's deaths. However, a few years after he died in a duel, his wife remarried. When she died, Berry's will was set aside, and Lucy's family remained enslaved. The family was separated when her father was sold to a plantation near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and again when her sister, Nancy, escaped to Canada." A link to the original document is provided.

"Five years before the publication of the first Negro Motorist Green Book—the beloved guide of destinations deemed safe for African Americans in a nation segregated by Jim Crow—two cousins named Roberta G. Thomas and Flaurience Sengstacke chronicled what life was like for two young, African American women traveling abroad. Published in the pages of the Chicago Defender, a weekly newspaper published by their uncle Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the cousins’ columns regaled readers with tales of the duo’s travels throughout Europe, as recounted in some 20 articles penned between July 1931 and August 1932. They experienced highs, like watching the indelible Josephine Baker perform in Paris, and lows, including an encounter with racism on an Italian train ride. The pair’s words bore auspicious warning, particularly as they witnessed the rise of “oppression and paranoia” during the dying days of Germany’s Weimar Republic."

"Racial bias in medical care is real—and it put these women's lives at risk... Imagine this: You go to the doctor and routinely feel unseen, unheard, misunderstood. Sometimes you fear you’ve been misdiagnosed. But your concerns are brushed off. You aren’t apprised of the full range of treatment options—the doctor seems to assume they don’t apply to you, or that you can’t take in all the information. Your local hospital is underfunded, the equipment outdated, frequently nonfunctional.
You’re denied pain meds. You’re handled brusquely. Staff openly question your ability to pay."