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Bruce Fort's Slave narratives study

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Go to Bruce Fort's American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology of the narratives of former slaves compiled from interviews conducted under the guidance of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s. Find the Annotated Index of Narratives and review the profiles of some of the freed people who took part in the project. Select several of the narratives for closer analysis. Black southerners sought respect, land, and the rights of citizenship. What did freedom mean? Did the nation miss an historic opportunity to create a multiracial society? The events of Reconstruction are said to have cast a long shadow over race relations for future generations. Do you agree? Your task is to read evidence in selected slave narratives and to think critically of the black experience and American's response to the era. As you read, ask, "How 'accurate' are the slave narratives? What is their 'value'?"

The slaves I have choosen to discuss are Mary Reynolds,Charity Anderson, Walter Calloway, and Richard Toler.

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Solution Summary

The paper provides guidance and assistance in tackling a paper on the lives and experience of a particular list of African-American slaves via their narratives as listed in Bruce Fort's anthology. The solution is a 1,160-word reflection on the narratives of the slaves - Mary Reynolds,Charity Anderson, Walter Calloway, and Richard Toler - to look at how they viewed the world, their place in it, and in particular, what freedom meant. References are listed. a word version of the solution is attached for easy printing.

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Dear Student,
Hi and thank you for using Brainmass. The solution below, a tutorial module specifically written for you to help you with this problem, should get you started. May I advise you to ensure that you have read the narratives of the slaves listed to ensure that when you put together your final paper, you will be able to include your own observations and input? It will also prepare you for discussions in the classroom. Good luck and thank you for using Brainmass. A word version of the solution is attached for easy printing.

Sincerely,
OTA 105878/Xenia Jones
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American Slave Narratives Review

The account of 100 year old Mary Reynolds was a fascinating ethnographic narratology in that she presented to us the world from her perspective as a girl born into slavery and the realities she faced as well as the bonds she created with others. We also see the social structures she lived in and her place in it. The word-for-word text presents a set of reflective autobiographic stories that she relates from her childhood to her marriage to her adulthood. We see through her eyes a life in slavery - the hardships faced by women slaves in the fields, the way they are traded and sold as property and the way they make sense of their own lot by accepting their place in the world or by dreaming of better things. We also see how she relates how her 'Massa' takes on any black woman he wants to sleep with and how the estate she was in had a number of children, working as slaves, sired by her own 'Massa'. In Mary's case, freedom did not mean so much as being considered legally free; freedom for her meant freedom from the hardships of life, from the bleeding hands, from bitter cold, from emotional abuse. She did not say this in 'concept' but she relates this ...

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