cover image UNCHAINED MEMORIES: Readings from the Slave Narratives

UNCHAINED MEMORIES: Readings from the Slave Narratives

Cynthia Goodman, Spencer Crew, UNCHAINED MEMORIES: Readings from the Slave Narratives

Set to air February 10, the HBO documentary chronicled by this book (and sharing its title) is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and features dramatic readings by Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Oprah Winfrey and others, while a traveling exhibition has been organized by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, and an expanded DVD is set for release the same day. Yet the testimony and 60 duotones here still speak for themselves. Bringing together more than 40 recollections from the more than 2,000 interviews conducted by the Depression-era WPA, this book acts as a small-scale, superlative introduction to the huge memory repository to be found in libraries and in the recent book-and-audio collection Remembering Slavery, which presents actual WPA slave narrative recordings along with much longer transcriptions. (The WPA's 17-volume set, archived as the Slave Narratives collection, remains available.) After short introductions from Harvard eminence Gates, and Crew and Goodman of the Freedom Center, the editors divide the book into eight chapters ( "Slave Auctions," "Work," "Family," "Living Conditions," "Abuse," "Special Occasions," "The Runaway," "Emancipation"), each with an explanatory introduction, that juxtapose slavery-era photos with the recollections of former slaves, sometimes shown in photos from the time of the interview. With its featured selection by Black Expressions, the BOMC and the History Book Club, this title should do exactly as intended: raise individual awareness of the terrible legacy every citizen a former slave-holding country must carry. (Feb.)