Hearing and Honoring the Stories of the Formerly Enslaved
Juneteenth Inspiration
As we celebrate and honor Juneteenth, let us reflect on the words of the formerly ensalved. Oral histories capture their joys, uncertainties, and hopes on the eve of Freedom. In early Spring 2020, one thousand Triangle area school students took in a theatrical performance, called “Sweet Chariot,” at the Carolina Theater in Durham. They applauded and eagerly asked questions about a topic that usually makes adults in the U.S. hesitant in conversations… the enslavement of African Americans. Later that day educators gathered, at Hayti Heritage Center, to do their own homework on teaching difficult history in creative and evidence-based ways. “Sweet Chariot” is based on oral narratives from the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project. Stories from formerly enslaved people were compiled in the “Slave Narrative Collection”. Interviewers conducted more than two thousand interviews with people who had been enslaved. The interviews took place in seventeen states during the years 1936-38.
This video looks at the collaborative nature of presenting and teaching difficult history, folding in the work of the Carolina Theater, Hayti Heritage Center, Virginia Repertory Theater, UNC’s Carolina K-12, Wilson Library at UNC, the Southern Oral History Program, and the Center for the Study of the American South.