Lay My Burden Down a Folk History of Slavery - Softcover

B.A. Botkin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226067211 ISBN 13: 9780226067216

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1973

Synopsis

In the 1930's, the last decade when many men and women who were born under slavery and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.still lived, the New Deal's Federal Writing Project made an extraordinary and important decision. It sent interviewers to ask these African-American survivors : What does it mean to be free? Even more, how does it feel?



"Does I remember much 'bout slavery times? Well, there is no way for me to disremember unless I die."



B.A. Botkin compiled nearly three hundred of these narratives to create a rich, unvarnished portrait of lives lived half slave, half free. In it, people who experienced the seasonal rhythms of plantation life . . .who were eyewitnesses to Lincoln, Douglas, and Tubman . . .who had their conciousness shaped by bondage . . .and who felt the anguish of the lash have their memories brought to life again. Their voices reach out across the decades and teach us what they know -- our history and our legacy in their telling of an indelible truth.

About this title

About the Author

B. A. Botkin was a college professor, folklorist, and researcher who was at various times national folklore editor for the Federal Writers' Project, Library of Congress Fellow in Folklore, and chief of the Archive of American Folk Song. He compiled and edited more than a dozen volumes of American folklore, among them "A Treasury of American Folklore," "Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery," and compilations of regional folklore from various areas, including New England, the South, and the West.
Stephen Cushman is a professor of English at the University of Virginia and the author of "Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle" and other works.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1973
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226067211
• ISBN 13: 9780226067216
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 298