Born in Slavery

Narratives from the WPA Slave Narrative Collection

By: William Moss

Narrated by: Christopher Wagnon

The WPA Slave Narrative Collection was a massive compilation of histories by former slaves undertaken by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1938. It was the simultaneous effort of state-level branches of FWP in 17 states, working largely separately from each other.

These narratives depict the physical and mental atrocities visited upon black people in a way no other method, save that of witnessing the barbarities firsthand, could. The narratives that disclosed the meanness and depravity of evil "masters", graphically illustrate the abject wrongness of slavery. Lest we be inclined to consider the reports depicting benignant generosity among slave owners as exonerating slavery, consider the aftermath of emancipation. Hundreds of thousands of Black people who were taught to depend on the largess of their white masters as the only way to live, were plunged into contemptible, humiliating poverty; swept under the feet of the vanquished foe that once enslaved them.

Born in Slavery is a collection of the expression of these former slaves. Having described the slavery from which they were emancipated, they then speak of a new slavery of exclusion and hatred.

Public Domain (P)2020 Historical Recordings

Awesome!

Amazing book but depressing at the same time. This book should be required reading in schools. The world would be a better place.

Shameful narrator choice

I just can’t remotely comprehend the use of a white man to narrate these otherwise perfectly wonderful stories. A white man who manages to sound playful and happy-go-lucky, no matter what horrors he’s describing. Huge fail.

Great Book /Well Read

If you are a avid researcher of the WPA slave stories you may have heard some of theses stories before. Nonetheless there were still plenty of stories in this book that were new to me. The reader worked hard to capture the spirit and vernacular.

Needs a Different Narrator

I really wanted to listen to this book, but I would have preferred not having to listen to the same narrator throughout the book. A female narrator would work better for the female narratives, and also, a black voice would have been better overall, as well.

double check your work

I enjoyed the narrator's voice but the amount of times the 'redo' recording of a section that was not edited out became distracting.