It is not only during February that we choose to focus on our history, we study it all year, including recent history. One of the subjects we found most difficult was slavery itself. While it is easy to focus on the achievements of black people since the Civil Rights movement, the period before that all the way to 1833 when slavery was abolished, is very complicated.
In our research we found a website that contains the stories of some people who were slaves at the turn of the 20th Century. The language is difficult, but the stories are inspiring. Below is an excerpt from one of the stories.
Interview of Mrs. Fannie Berry, Ex-slave 861 E. Bank Street.
Feb 26 1937
Nat Turner
Back 'fore the sixties, I can 'member my mistress, Miss Sara Ann, comin' to de window an' hollerin', "De niggers is arisin'! De niggers is arisin'! De niggers is killin' all de white folks, killin' all de babies in de cradle!" It must have been Nat Turners Insurrection; which wus sometime 'fo de breakin' of de Civil War.
I wus waitin' on table in dinin' room an' dis day dey had finished eatin' early an' I wuz cleanin' off table. Don't you know I must have been a good size gal.
John Brown
Yes I 'member somethin' 'bout him too. I know my master came home an' said, dat on his way to de gallows ole John stopped an' kissed a little nigger child. "How com' I don't 'member? Don't tell me I don't cause I do. I don't care if its done bin a thousand years." I know what master said an' it is as fresh in my mind as it wuz dat day. Dis is de song I herd my master sing:
Old John Brown came to Harpers Ferry Town,
Purpose to raise an insurrection,
Old Governor Wise put the specks upon his eyes
An' showed him the happy land of Canan
Invention
My master tole us dat de niggers started the railroad, an' dat a nigger lookin' at a boilin' coffee pot on a stove one day got the idea dat he could cause it to run by putting wheels on it. Dis nigger being a blacksmith put his thoughts into action by makin' wheels an' put coffee on it, an' by some kinder means he made it run an' the idea wuz stole from him an' dey built de steamengine.
Relationship
I wuz one slave dat de poor white man had his match. See Miss Sue? Dese here ol' white men said, "what I can't do by fair means I'll do by foul." One tried to throw me, but he couldn't. We tusseled an' knocked over chairs an' when I got a grip I scratched his face all to piecesl an dar wuz no more bothering Fannie from him; but oh, honey, some slave would be beat up so, when dey resisted, an' sometimes if you'll 'belled de overseer would kill you. Us colored women had to go through a plenty, I tell you.
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