Fluent Essays

THIS ASSIGNMENT IS DUE MARCH 9TH AT 11:59 EST. Read the 3 pdf articles (in attachments) and cite information from the material AND offer your personal reflections. Must be 400-500 words!! I need finished by tonight 2/16/21 at 11:59 PM EST1 Selections from the WPA interviews of formerly enslaved African Americans on Slavery Over 2300 former slaves were interviewed during the Great Depression of the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project, a New Deal agency in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Note: Selections from the narratives are presented as transcribed. Black interviewees often referred to themselves with terms that in some uses are considered offensive. In the WPA narratives, some white interviewers, despite project guidelines, used stereotypical patterns of representing black speech. Talk about hard times! We see’d ’em in dem days, durin’ the war and most specially after de surrender. Folks dese days don’t know what trouble looks like. We was glad to eat ash-cakes and drink parched corn and rye ’stead o’ coffee. I’ve seed my grandmother go to de smoke house, and scrape up de dirt whar de meat had dropped, and take it to de house for seasonin’. You see, both armies fed off’n de white folks, and dey cleaned out dey barns and cellars and smoke houses when dey come. ANDREW MOSS, enslaved in Georgia, interviewed in Tennessee, ca. 1937 Well when they started off fightin at Murfreesboro [Tennessee], it was a continual roar. The tin pans in the cubbard rattle all time. It was distressful. The house shakin’ all time. All our houses jar. The earth quivered. It sound like the judgment. Nobody felt good. Both sides foragin’ one as bad as the other, hungry, gittin’ everything you put way to live on. That’s “war.” I found out all bout what it was. Lady it ain’t nothin’ but hell on dis earth. HAMMETT DELL, enslaved in Tennessee, interviewed in Arkansas, ca. 1937 Member the war? ’Course I does. I ’member how some them march off in their uniforms, lookin’ so grand, and how some of them hide out in the wood to keep from lookin’ so grand. They was lots of talkin’ ’bout fighting, and rubbing and scrubbing the old shotgun. The oldes’ niggers was settin’ round the fire late in the night, stirrin’ the ashes with the poker and takin’ out the roast ’taters. They’s smokin’ the old corn cob pipe and homemade tobacco and whisperin’ right low and quiet like what they’s gwineter [going to] do and whar they’s gwinter to when Mister Lincoln, he turn them free. The more they talk, the more I git scared that the niggers is going to git sot free and wondering what I’s gwine to do if they is. ABRAM SELLS, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas, ca. 1937 I was too little to know much about de war but, little as I was, dere’s one thing dat’s still as fresh in my memory now as den, and dat’s how people watched and waited to hear dat old Georgia train come in. Not many folks was able to take de papers den, and de news in ’em was from one to two weeks old when dey got here. All de men dat was able to fight was off at de front and de folks at home was anxious for news. De way dat old train brought ’em de news was lak4 Selections from the WPA interviews of formerly enslaved African Americans on Being a Civil War Soldier Over 2300 former slaves were interviewed during the Great Depression of the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project, a New Deal agency in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Note: Selections from the narratives are presented as transcribed. Black interviewees often referred to themselves with terms that in some uses are considered offensive. In the WPA narratives, some white interviewers, despite project guidelines, used stereotypical patterns of representing black speech. I was born in slavery [in 1850] and I enlisted in the Union Army, January 1, 1864, at Oberlin, Ohio, and according to the National Tribune, I was one of the youngest soldiers in the ranks. I was present at the battle of Petersburg, Virginia, July 30, 1864; one of the disasters to the Northern forces of the war, and present on June 15, 1864, at the initiatory battle of Deep Bottom, and also at Cold Harbor. I was in the Ninth Army Corps, under Burnside, and was transferred around, in front of Richmond, Virginia. General Butler went down to Fort Fisher [North Carolina] and failed, which was the last open port of the Confederacy. Another expedition was organized and General Terry given command. We embarked on the night of December 31, 1864; landed the morning of January 13, 1865, on the peninsula. On the night of January 15, 1854, we captured Fort Fisher. We had a terrible, terrible time landing! There was an awful storm! I was told to jump overboard, and oh my! I swallowed a good deal of the Atlantic. . . . I want to tell you of one of the tragic things that happened during the war, and I was there and saw it. It was at the Southside railroad, at Petersburg, on September 27, 1864.1 I was put on picket duty. The “Rebs” had built a fire and the wind was driving it toward us. They began to holler and cheer, very happy over the fact. All at once we could hear someone coming toward us. The pickets opened fire on what they thought were “Rebs,” and found out to their distress that it was a bunch of recruits from our own lines. Many were killed. . . . If I could choose my weapons for the next war, I would choose doughnuts, to be thrown at each other across the Atlantic. SIM YOUNGER, Union army: Ninth Army Corps; enslaved in Missouri, interviewed in Missouri, 1937 Do you want to hear how I runned away and jined the Yankees? You know Abraham Lincoln ’claired freedom in ’63, first day of January. In October ’63, I runned away and went to Pine Bluff [Arkansas] to get to the Yankees. . . The young boy what cut the whips he named Jerry he come along wif me, and we wade the stream for long piece. Then we hide in dark woods. It was cold, frosty weather. Two days and two nights we traveled. That boy, he so cold and hongry he want to fall out by the way, but I drug him on. When we gets to1 Selections from the WPA interviews of formerly enslaved African Americans on Emancipation Over 2300 former slaves were interviewed during the Great Depression of the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project, a New Deal agency in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Note: Selections from the narratives are presented as transcribed. Black interviewees often referred to themselves with terms that in some uses are considered offensive. In the WPA narratives, some white interviewers, despite project guidelines, used stereotypical patterns of representing black speech. The end of the war, it come jus’ like that ⎯ like you snap your fingers. “How did you know the end of the war had come?” asked the interviewer. How did we know it? Hallelujah broke out ⎯ “Abe Lincoln freed the nigger With the gun and the trigger; And I ain’t goin’ to get whipped any more. I got my ticket, Leavin’ the thicket, And I’m a-headin’ for the Golden Shore!” Soldiers, all of a sudden, was everywhere ⎯ comin’ in bunches, crossin’ and walkin’ and ridin’. Everyone was a-singin. We was all walkin’ on golden clouds. Hallejujah! “Union forever, Hurrah, boys, hurrah Although I may be poor, I’ll never be a slave ⎯ Shoutin’ the battle cry of freedom!” Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves. We was free. Just like that, we was free. It didn’t seem to make the whites mad, either. They went right on giving us food just the same. Nobody took our homes away, but right off colored folks started on the move. They seemed to want to get closer to freedom, as they’d know what it was ⎯ like it was a place or a city. . . . We knowed freedom was on us, but we didn’t know what was to come with it. We thought we was goin’ to git rich like the white folks. We thought we was goin’ to be richer than the white folks, ’cause we was stronger and knowed how to work, and the whites didn’t and they didn’t have us to work for them anymore. But it didn’t turn out that way. We soon found out that freedom could make folks proud but it didn’t make them rich. FELIX HAYWOOD, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas, ca. 1937 I think ⎯ now I don’t know, but I think I was bout six or seven when they surrendered. . . . When we went down to the gate to see the soldiers, I heard Miss Judy say (she was old mistress’ sister), I heard her say, “Well, you let ’em beat you” and started cryin’. I cried too and ma ma said, “What you cryin’ for?” I said, “Miss Judy’s cryin’.” Mama said, “You fool, you is free!” I didn’t know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers did a lot of devil-ment. Had guards but they just run over them guards. I think Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the people some land after they was free, but they didn’t give ’em nothin’ ⎯ just turned em loose. Course we ought to be free ⎯ you know privilege is worth everything. SUSA LAGRONE, enslaved in Mississippi,