In Their Own Words

PETER: We’re going to end our show today with the voices of those most affected by emancipation, former slaves themselves. Beginning in the 1930s, federal projects like the Works Progress Administration sent unemployed writers around the South to record the stories of freed people. In those interviews, we hear descriptions of life under slavery. And in a few cases, of the first moments of freedom.

BRIAN: You’re going to hear three voices in this next piece. The first is Fountain Hughes of Charlottesville, Virginia. Second is Billy McCrea of Jasper, Texas. And the third is Laura Smalley of Hempstead, Texas.

FOUNTAIN HUGHES: My name is Fountain Hughes. I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. My grandfather belonged to Thomas Jefferson. My grandfather was 115 years old when he died. And now I’m 101 years old.

BILLY MCCREA: Things come to me in spells, you know. I remember things more when I’m laying down than I do when I’m standing or when I’m walking around. We had no home, you know. We were just turned out like a lot of cattle. You know how they turn cattle out in the pasture? Well after freedom, you know, colored people didn’t have nothing. After we got freed and they turned us over like cattle, we could, we didn’t have nowhere to go. We didn’t have nobody to boss us. And we didn’t know nothing. There’s wasn’t no school.

The dogs have got it now better than we had it when we came along. Colored people that’s free ought to awful thankful. And some of them are sorry they are free now. Some of them now would rather be slaves.

HERMOND NORWOOD: Which would you rather be, Uncle Fountain?

FOUNTAIN HUGHES: Me? Which I’d rather be? You know what I’d rather do? If I thought, had any idea, that I’d ever be a slave again, I’d take a gun and just end it all right away. Because you’re nothing but a dog. You’re not a thing but a dog.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BILLY MCCREA: And the Yankees would come. And after a while, they’d be a whole troop of men come. They say they was Yankees. All walking. All walking. Next time you see, there come a whole troop of Yankees, all riding horses, big guns a-hanging on in there, all like that, you know. Yeah. We all would stand looking at them, all going home.

And I said, I’d say, Mama, where they going? She said, they all going home now. And old Col. McRae, that was our master. And said, well, Harriet, all of you niggers are going free now. Yankees all going home. I remember that just as well.

FEMALE SPEAKER: You were born right there and never did leave? You were?

LAURA SMALLEY: Born right there and stayed there until I was about nine, 10 years old. Maybe more. Stayed right there. We didn’t know where to go. Mama and them didn’t know where to go, you see, after freedom broke. Just turned, just like you turn something out, you know. Didn’t know where to go. That’s just, where they stayed.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Mm-hm. That’s right.

LAURA SMALLEY: Didn’t know where to go. Turned us out just like, you know, you turn out cattle. I say. And old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free.

JOHN HENRY FAULK: He didn’t tell you that?

LAURA SMALLEY: No. He didn’t tell. They worked there. I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that. Colored folks, celebrates that day.

JOHN HENRY FAULK: Can you remember any that the slaves sung? Did they ever sing any songs?

LAURA SMALLEY: No. You know, I never sat there in slavery. But I hear them sing some after freedom. I know some. But I didn’t know, thems way back songs, I can’t hardly sing any of them. And one of them I seem to remember. My old step-daddy used to sing it, by the thunderbolt a rattling, a poor sinner stands so [INAUDIBLE]. Lord, I got a union in my soul, and I ain’t got long to stay. Didn’t I told you that one, yeah?

JOHN HENRY FAULK: Yeah.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

FEMALE SPEAKER: That’s a nice one.

LAURA SMALLEY: [SINGING] The thunderbolt a rattling– Oh, poor sinner stands so [INAUDIBLE], but I got a union in my soul, and I ain’t got long to stay.

JOHN HENRY FAULK: I’ve heard it. Can you sing the rest that? That’s a gift. That’s a sure thing.

LAURA SMALLEY: [SINGING] Lord, I ain’t got long to stay. Lord, I ain’t got long to stay in the world, ain’t got long to stay. God’s calling me and I ain’t got long to stay. Lord, I ain’t got long to stay in the world, I ain’t got long to stay.

Goodbye and I ain’t got long to stay, Lord, I ain’t got long to stay in the world, I ain’t got long to stay. God’s calling me and I ain’t got long to stay. Lord, I ain’t got long to stay in the world, I ain’t got long to stay.

Farewell, I ain’t got long to stay. Lord, I ain’t got long to stay in the world, I ain’t got long– I ain’t got much a voice for singing.

JOHN HENRY FAULK: Oh, you got a good voice. Lord have mercy, child. I didn’t you could sing that good.

LAURA SMALLEY: I ain’t got no voice for singing.

PETER: Those were the voices of Fountain Hughes, Billy McCrea, and Laura Smalley. The recordings and hours more like them are available to us, thanks to the Library of Congress and American Folk Life Center. You can download them at backstoryradio.org.

ED: Today’s episode of BackStory was produced by Nell Boeschenstein, Jess Engebretson Eric Mennel, and Allison Quantz. Jamal Millner is our technical director. Allen Chen is our intern. Special thanks this week to Robert Cook.

PETER: Our senior producer is Tony Field. BackStory’s executive producer is Andrew Wyndham. Major supporter for BackStory is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the University of Virginia, Weinstein Properties, an anonymous donor, and the History Channel. History made every day.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Peter Onuf and Brian Balogh are professors in the University of Virginia’s Corcoran Department of History. Ed Ayers is president and professor of history at the University of Richmond. BackStory was created by Andrew Wyndham for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.