Website gives voice to the memories of ex-slaves

Deep and resonant like coming thunder is the voice of Bob Ledbetter as he remembers his life as a slave -- singing to pass the time, learning to read and write, joining the church and getting married.

“Well, how have you got along so well in life?” the interviewer asks Ledbetter in a 1940 conversation in Louisiana. “What’s been your principles?” In his rumbling tone, Ledbetter replies: “I know what’s right and I tried my best to do what’s right in everything I do.”

Now, people the world over can listen to interviews with Ledbetter and other former slaves through the online presentation “Voices From the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories” on the Library of Congress’ American Memory website (www.memory.loc.gov).

Nearly two dozen people are interviewed. Many of the recordings -- most cut on scratchy 78 rpm discs -- have not been released before.

Michael Taft, head of the library’s archive of folk culture, says: “These are the only voices we have from a defining era in American history.” He adds: “These are the stories of people’s lives who grew out of slavery.”

Reams of written documents regarding slavery, mostly from field historians of the Works Progress Administration, are kept in the library’s American Folklife Center and are available on the Web at the American Memory site, Taft says. But those interviewers used dictation and could not always be faithful to what was being said.

The recordings were made between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states.