Thought For The Day "The soul that is within me no man can degrade."   Frederick Douglass Former Slave, Abolitionist, Author, Orator 1818 - 1895

The Slave Narratives The following transcript is from an actual interview with a former slave. This was part of The Federal Writers Project that was conducted between 1936 and 1938 to document this priceless information before this generation passed away. The collection contains over 2,300 interviews comprising over 9,500 written pages and over 500 photographs. Below is a memory from the interview with a delightful lady named Sarah Gudger, who believed she was 121 years old at the time of the interview. Sarah Gudger, Age 121 I 'membahs de time when mah mammy wah alive, I wah a small chile, afoah dey tuck huh t' Rims Crick. All us chillens wah playin' in de ya'd one night. Jes' arunnin' an' aplayin' lak chillun will. All a sudden mammy cum to de do' all a'sited. "Cum in heah dis minnit," she say. "Jes look up at what is ahappenin'," and bless yo' life, honey, da sta's wah fallin' jes' lak rain.* Mammy wah tebble skeered, but we chillen wa'nt afeard, no, we wa'nt afeard. But mammy she say evah time a sta' fall, somebuddy gonna die. Look lak lotta folks gonna die f'om de looks ob dem sta's. Ebbathin' wah jes' as bright as day. Yo' cudda pick a pin up. Yo' know de sta's don' shine as bright as dey did back den. I wondah wy dey don'. Dey jes' don' shine as bright. Wa'nt long afoah dey took mah mammy away, and I wah lef' alone. *(One of the most spectacular meteoric showers on record, visible all over North America, occurred in 1833). Manuscript Division, Library of Congress and Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress For more information visit: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/