Imagine being born into slavery in the South. You don’t have a dime to your name, don’t have any education and all you know are the surrounding fields of the plantation you worked on for years or decades. What would you do after the abolishment of slavery? How would you start over? Historian Richard Cahan joins us this week to share a few of the firsthand stories of former slaves living in the South during the 1800’s and in America’s post-Civil War era.
Guest:
- Richard Cahan, historian, author, River Blood: American Slavery from the People Who Lived It
Each profile features a photo and a short excerpt from an interview with that person conducted by the federal writers’ project during the late 1930’s. The project was created by the federal government after the Civil War in an effort to capture the raw experiences of those formerly enslaved.
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