Then
Slave narratives, 1936-38
Alabama, Texas, North Carolina
Grabill Photo, courtesy of Library of Congress
Then
Slave narratives, 1936-38
Alabama, Texas, North Carolina
Grabill Photo, courtesy of Library of Congress
For two years, starting in 1936, the United States government deployed writers throughout the country to collect the life stories of the formerly enslaved. The writers worked for the Federal Writers Project (FWP), part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the largest of the New Deal agencies created by president Franklin D. Roosevelt to combat the Great Depression. As part of the FWP, out-of-work writers were hired to collect the stories of everyday Americans, including ex-slaves. The result of the slave narrative initiative is a rich, invaluable, and ultimately imperfect collection of over 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photographs.
Armed with a questionnaire created by John A. Lomax, the National Advisor on Folklore and Folkways for the FWP, and the architect of the slave narrative program, interviewers sought out ex-slaves in 17 states. The original 1941 document that collects the resulting narratives acknowledges the “obvious limitations” of the project, the “bias and fallibility of both informants and interviewers, the use of leading questions, unskilled techniques, and insufficient controls and checks…”. Most of the interviewers were white, especially in Southern states, although there were African-American writers among the FWP’s ranks, particularly in Florida. At its peak, that state’s program employed 10 African Americans. (Although there were some important African-American participants in the project, including Zora Neal Huston.)
Many historians have noted that the presence of white interviewers indelibly affected the resulting documents. “The Ex-Slave Project set in motion a series of profoundly earthshaking and revelatory encounters as black and white Americans from different regions, educational backgrounds, and economic classes spoke to each other across the racial divide,” explains Cornell history professor Catherine A. Stewart while also noting that “the compromising circumstances of the color line in 1930s America made it almost impossible for blacks and whites to speak to one another freely about slavery.” Another issue is the fact that the writers were instructed to capture the interviews in vernacular, and—as the Library of Congress notes— the resulting interpretation of black speech was “unavoidably influenced by preconceptions and stereotypes”.
In addition to interviews, many of the writers also photographed their subjects. For these images, the FWP provided specific art direction. In a 1937 memo, George Cronyn, the associate director of the FWP, wrote that:
We would like to have portraits wherever they can be secured, but we urge your photographers to make the studies as simple, natural, and "unposed" as possible. Let the background, cabin or whatnot, be the noimal [sic] setting—in short, just the picture a visitor would expect to find by "dropping in" on one of these old-timers.
The photographs produced reflect these instructions. Men and women often sit or stand in front of brick and wooden walls, with just hints of daily life in the background; a horse, a mailbox, a flowering garden. The women occasionally hold children in their laps; the men often have their hats in their hands.
The narratives assembled represent a sprawling compendium of memories that depict the everyday alongside the harrowing: The sound of guinea fowl at daybreak, song lyrics, and stark descriptions of torture and abuse. One interviewee, 82-year-old William Moore, reported that it was common for his former owner to stake slaves to the ground and beat them with a bullwhip until their “blood run out and red up the ground.” He would then salt their wounds until “the man slober and puke. Then his shirt stick to his back a week or more.” Of his former owner’s fate, Moore offered this pronouncement: “I ‘lieve he’s in hell.”
Then
Slave narratives, 1936-38
Alabama, Texas, North Carolina
Grabill Photo, courtesy of Library of Congress
Now
Damon Davis, 2017
St. Louis, Missouri
Now
Damon Davis, 2017
St. Louis, Missouri
When I first encountered the Federal Writers’ Project collection of slave narratives, the photos were so striking and familiar, I knew this was the source material I wanted to respond to.
I was drawn to each image for a different reason. The photographs had a familiarity in the eyes of their subjects, in their expressions and their presence. The pain and truth in their faces reminds me the people I love, grew up with, and encounter on a day-to-day basis. It is difficult to explain, this spiritual connection that people of the same place and experience share, but it’s what my work as an artist and storyteller is all about.
Over the last four years, much of he focus of my work has been in the service of the Black Lives Matter movement. I like to think I use my art as a weapon to fortify and protect the spirits of black people, to defy and resist their destruction. In a similar vein is an ongoing interdisciplinary project I call Darker Gods, which diverges from current events but is still rooted in Blackness, now in the realm of the surreal.
Darker Gods is the story of black deities that rule over a parallel universe—a world without white supremacy, where black people aren’t subservient—and the followers, shamans, troubadours, witchdoctors, the humans that worship and interact with them. The stories, photographs, and music in the project are all about reimagining black identity through hybrid of mythologies—including southern black folklore, Greek and Roman gods, and Yoruba spirituality—to create a universe of deities that embody different aspects and tropes of ideas around blackness.
With the mythological world of Darker Gods in mind, I wanted to write a new story for the people in the WPA photographs. These people that had seen and survived so much, what did they do to keep their souls and spirits protected? Who would they pray to in the realm I was creating? Who would they have been in a world where black people were not in the background, but front and center?
Much of my work incorporates the use of digital distortion to play with the continuum of history. When I glitch (or pixelate) portions of these old images, I feel like I am creating a conversation across time and space. It’s my way of creating a future relic, something that is both temporary and timeless. It speaks to the idea that our culture exists today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Darker Gods is an exercise in Black Surrealism; the magic, beauty and struggle of real people and real lives, reimagined in a new way.
Damon Davis was born in 1985 in St. Louis, Missouri. He is an American multimedia artist, musician, and filmmaker. His 2014 public art installation “All Hands on Deck” was collected by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He is one of the founders of FarFetched, a St. Louis-based artist collective. He is also co-director of Whose Streets?, a documentary about the 2014 demonstrations in Ferguson.
Explore Federal Project no. 2
This Land Is Your Land
During the Depression, the federal government urged Americans to visit the country’s natural wonders.
Shelter in Place
The most iconic image from the Great Depression centers on rural poverty—but then, as now, the misery of homelessness was compounded in America’s cities.
Song of the Mississippi
Heartbreak defines the human experience. And nothing can break your heart like your own country.
Hole in One
Harnessing the power of the humble hole punch, to either create narratives or deflate them.
Back to the Music, Back to the Game
A visit to the juke joints in the Florida Everglades where migrant laborers could go to relax.
The Exquisite Catalog of a Crow Fair
Wendy Red Star brings illustrations from the Denver Art Museum’s card catalog to the Crow Nation’s annual gathering.
Public Service Announcements
Updating the iconic posters of the Works Progress Administration.
Proposals for a Monument
Public art has the power to show us what we want to see—or reveal what we deserve.
Portraits of Hard Living in America
The faces and places of a forgotten swath of American life.
The Afterlives of Slaves
Snapshots of a life after slavery, and an imagining of a world without bondage.
If You Build It, They Will Leave
During the New Deal, Southwest DC was razed to create a “model city” for federal workers. Now the area is being redeveloped again, this time into a gentrified urban playground.
The Health and Safety of the Mother
During the Depression, the government encouraged men to get back to work—and women to stay home.
Child’s Play
Handmade dolls embodied marginalized workers’ desire for autonomy—and, now, the plight of children at the United States’ southern border.
A Room of One’s Own
A photograph of a home speaks volumes about the inhabitant, even when they’re not included in the shot.
A Queen Is Born
A local beauty pageant can be about more than just looks. It can also reveal how a community wants to be seen.
Stoop Life and Survival
Documenting a life of a neighborhood means covering street life in all of its joy and pain.
Window Shopping
Conspicuous consumption plummeted during the Great Depression, but the fantasy of big spending remains a part of the American dream.
The Visible Man
Telling, and preserving, the stories that reveal what it’s really like to be black in America—from Ralph Ellison’s classic novel to now.
The People of the Land
Dust Bowl migrants had to pull up roots. Native Hawaiians are strengthening theirs.
After the Curtain Calls
Fulfilling the American dream of standing under bright lights while your friends and neighbors applaud.
The American Guide to the New Vermont
Shane Lavalette follows the refugees who have made their home in the whitest state in the nation.
The Measure of a Man
As Depression-era art centered on the heroic male figures rebuilding America, Paul Cadmus infused his public work with overt expressions of gay desire.
Letting Sleeping Children Lie
Leanne Shapton reconsiders motherhood after seeing a photograph of children asleep during a square dance.
When Art Is an Act of Protest
A summer of activism in Chicago reminds us that in order for history to be taught, it must first be recorded.
The Pioneer Women
For young women who grow up on the family farm, there comes a time to make a choice—should I stay or should I go?
The Shapes of Things to Come
Before many Americans had ever seen an abstract painting, the WPA commissioned artists to create large, avant-garde murals—for installation in a public housing project.
Signs of Boom and Bust
Mark Steinmetz drives the streets of the city’s fast-growing urban sprawl.
The Many Lives of McCarren Park Pool
Beloved, abandoned, then beloved once more, a Brooklyn pool transforms alongside its neighborhood.
On the Road in Search of Soul
The black Southerners who joined the Great Migration wanted to leave oppression behind—not their beloved family recipes. Their traditions would redefine American cooking.
She Works Hard for the Money
During the Depression, women were advised to “sing for their supper” as a way to survive hard times.
Wall to Wall
Public murals are contested spaces, where retellings of history and new visions of the future fight for prominence.
Life Beyond Bars
The Works Progress Administration funded the creation of public works like dams, bridges—and more than 30 prisons and jails.
Making Headlines
The relentless churn of daily news can feel like a burden—especially for those who don’t see themselves represented in it.
The Cycle of a Woman’s Life
A 20th-century mural for a women’s prison meets 21st-century inequality.
