January 12th 1999 my name is hound huge my grandfather bongs guitar the chefs and now I am 101 yo they are voices that break a silence we will say we belong to people you sellers like yourself horses how witnesses to a time we only know from photographs and the witan were but they were there then I stood on that ticket face all day long Kingdom told you going back the Phantom Zone two different races I'm told console didn't go born to slaver we didn't have no property we didn't have no room and now we can hear them speak because you're nothing but a dog you're not a thing but ago found voices the slaves life told by those who lived from ABC news this is Nightline reporting from Washington Ted Koppel imagine for a moment what it'll be like for Americans two or three generations hence assuming of course that we hadn't blown ourselves back into the Stone Age and that someone can still figure out what format everything was in assuming all of that our great-great-grandchildren will know more about us than any generation in the history of the world has ever known about its ancestors there'll be photographs of course black and white and color audio cassettes and in a few families eight and sixteen millimeter film and there will be thousands upon thousands of miles of videotape on which we will have recorded everything that struck us as interesting or funny or important about the milestones of our lives and those of our friends and families they will be able to see and hear us long after we are dead imagine if we could only do the same if we could only bring back the voices and images and most important of all the memories of those who lived a hundred or more years ago well brace yourselves for a minor miracle for reasons I'll explain as we go along we have the voices and the memories and a few black-and-white photographs to go along of some men and women who were born some of them a hundred and fifty years ago and what makes these recollections all the more remarkable is that these men and women had been bought and sold like so much livestock
tell you the truth when I think over today I don't know how I'm living I remember that this is Wales look like to me I can it says all our lives and mother mostly fishing history following the slave they know nothing about reading write that all that I know the teachings of mine you must marry mrs. mom Jim didn't wear gold she has a physical death star just like he's turned from monkey loose in one go
they are haunting voices from the past not actors reading a script or scholars reading a text but the actual voices of men and women Americans who were born in slavery
my name is how huge I was born in charge sir Alfred Enya my grandfather Blanca taught ourselves my grandfather were a hundred and fifteen years old when he died and now I am 101 you
incredible as it seems we are listening to the voices of ex-slaves telling of their lives in bondage men like fountain Hughes on the living conditions of slaves in Virginia in the 1860s when he was a teenager
hope you didn't have a bid when you save he won't sit on the floor solitude just like a lot of wild people we didn't we didn't know nothing didn't I a joke a notebook
women like Laura Smalley describing the makeshift church where slaves worshipped on a big plantation in East Texas
all the Chaffee would have dealer tube tell the water fitness like this thing is you know that would kick your voice and they would they would have chased around at to ball I'm getting rounded to
or Harriet Smith remembering what she saw as a small girl during the final days of the Civil War
said I stood on that picket fence all day long seeing them soldiers going back to silence on different places solid solely colored soldiers and joy my long Baja ah-hoo - Stewart has writes
these recorded memories were among thousands of interviews done with X lives in the 1930s and 40s the majority were written interviews published in pamphlets and books a handful were recorded on the latest equipment of the day 200-pound portable recorders that a hearty band of folklorists lugged across the South
you had a go free you could write I have
these recordings one scratchy distant filled with a crackle and pop of that primitive equipment nothing worries me I'm not my head ain't even white
now have been cleaned up through the magic of modern technology digitized
I'm the oldest one that I know that's livin
the age of the computer has reached back to polish a memory from another century no 150 years ago
you remember slavery days I remember I buy food and all the name of all the children call every one the children's name did you belong even the days of all
the results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting almost unbelievable the idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful as startling really as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or robert e lee's speak listen again to fountain Hughes who was born in 1848
transcript: we were saying we brown people they sellers like yourself horses without hope nor again auction bench and their four children upon the bitch who beat on you deceivers you've been an academy
much of what these three former slaves say may at first seem unremarkable much of what they say may surprise and upset and their calm demeanor is at odds with the evil and violence we associate with slavery here is 91 year old Texan Laura Smalley talking in the 1940s about the outcome of a tussle between two women one black one white one slave one mistress the mistress tried to slap the slave but the black woman pushed her into a chair Laura Smalley was a girl at the time but she remembers vividly what happened to the black woman when the master came home
transcript: but I think a woman total woman cat in the peach orchard and whip them and no just tired of had this waiting around a pizza was a tree I remember that this is well look like to me I can't and round a tree and work them and what she couldn't do them but just kick of thinking on this kick of me but it just had a close all down so a tional didn't have a plum naked but they had a toe down so a waist and they were not ended football you can own and snuff the pipe out on you know snuff pipe out on us you know the ambles in the paper where you'll see the pipe smoking all out on this is ABC News Nightline brought to you by First Union this is a world only a few know well world of risk and uncertainty where the roads can take you to success prosperity for sometimes - no place at all this is the financial world decades banks and investment firms in mountainous size have rolled the land yet high above the horizon another mountain has risen a mountain called First Union with 16 million customers the nation's eighth largest brokerage and sixth largest bank for new perspective of the financial world come to the mountain called First Union or if you prefer the mountain will come to you 2020 Wednesday our hidden cameras show you children living in a kind of hell some drugged confined a journey you will never forget on 2020 winter the People's Choice Awards oh they love me they really love me the nation's TV critics with the best night viewers for quality television I'm not what oh we got a motor all we have to do is give the jury something to believe they're all saying the same thing the best shows on television or on ABC da why do more Americans get their news from ABC News ork in the city are still enough said ABC News more debt more news more reasonable watch the best what is remarkable in the taped recollections of these ex-slaves is the lack of anger remember though that these are the recollections of people who were children or teenagers during slavery remember - how intimidating it is for most of us today to have a microphone or camera thrust at us and to be asked questions on the street it must have been even more daunting for poor blacks living in a highly segregated south to be asked by white strangers using a strange machine to talk candidly about being slaves for all that it is startling how much the ex-slaves reveal fear hunger unrelenting work but also fondness for masters perhaps even love Harriet Smith's family for example were the only slaves of an East Texas farmer and his family they lived in a cabin next to their masters in circumstances not markedly different even attended the same church only at different times IRA's lousing city grew by folk stretch of in time she the white folks would have Church in the morning then they'd let the color people have churches a church and ease your slavery the same time Laura Smalley lived in the same area of Texas as Harriet Smith near the Brazos River one of more than 100 slaves on a big cotton plantation religion offered no consolation to the slaves here because the master for bad them the practice of religion and there was held to pay if the master caught them at prayer it all had no choice no analogy and old monster come along with one of them one of those uh was there having checked around it - he's down praying the old monster come in he just a prayer he community didn't told him get up from there you didn't get up he disappeared they say there were monster Commission told me he quit praying intended ask me Lord Hamlet son almost my so much old woman with a book is how it happened I saw an old monster and that old master what Damini camera wouldn't get up here just French you notice that pushing on putting hit you with a sling he just prayers little monster old MARSOC step back sell bread money kicked you naked we'd like to kick you naked nigga never stop praying I know he's had he had gone leaving pray it won't leaving pray didn't go to good stuff the plantation on which Smalley was a slave sounds brutal she recalls scrambling with other children for food from a huge wooden tray like a hog trough all of me no would get around that she would spoon and eat city like moisture super something like that no I'm chilling it around and just eat fountain Hughes tells his interviewer about the relentless round of work for him on a Virginia plantation time cut tobacco don't you cut all night on over to you you could watching your hangover night on he didn't matter but you tithe who tied your friend to save your time it was cotton not tobacco that solidified slavery though the invention of the cotton gin at the end of the 18th century made its processing easy but the crop still needed enormous amounts of unskilled labour control of the slave and his labor through laws and regulations became paramount fountain Hughes talks about one of those controls the past system now I couldn't move you here across the street well I couldn't open nobody's house that I have a look for something from my master and if I had that pass at work or pass if I had that pass I could go wherever he send me and I'd have to be back you never know who are we said Rizzoli they'd give me another pass not be led back so it's a shoehorn even Emancipation didn't truly free the slaves freedom freed slaves for more travail the end of the Civil War found many cast adrift without skills and no place to go and the Yankees who freed them weren't always seen as benevolent liberators I remember when the Yankees came along to all the good horses in to holy sword a warning flower shoots up out in the room let it go down the river and you know the people who have not illegal but they don't have the ex-slaves left one hell for another perhaps an even more dangerous one no longer property they didn't have the protections afforded property when we were slaves we couldn't either see then forgot free we did not leave you and whether she did she hunted places and found this out for Darwin one and we didn't have no property we have no one you love no well nothing we didn't have nothing no no no just for lady cattle this tandem and get along the best record in Texas the slaves weren't told they were free until two months after the war ended Smalley remembers that her masters gave the slaves a dinner and then they were free I don't hide the outside is a functional thing we didn't know they just thought you know we'll just feed this you know and them didn't we're going see after field room that time just like he turns a mouse you know then while ago but this what you stayed in for the group told us all just like you know it's on our camera in the narratives the slaves used an interesting phrase for the end of slavery they say when the break came good times easy times were not at hand the trials for millions of black Americans didn't end in 1865 they continued Laura Smalley and her family became sharecroppers Harriet Smith's first husband was killed by whites during the Reconstruction probably because of his political organizing fountain Hughes went north to Baltimore and worked at numerous jobs including hauling manure not an enviable job but it was the job of a free man whenever car batteries are put to the test America's most trusted lives up to its name diehard what's under your hood Tweety I really don't think you guys are relative I do MCI five since Sundays helps me keep Oh My Space Jam buddies he doesn't even have feathers but we have the same waist name it's just five cents a minute every minute every Sunday along with low rates all week long but just because he's Larry Bird and you're Tweety Bird doesn't mean you relate it I don't know we work an awful lot alike call 1-800 Sundays to become an MCI customer let me help you I'll do it I can do it arthritis has claimed these hands but take comfort in the medicine arthritis experts recommend first Tylenol Arthritis extended relief it lasts up to twice as long as regular aspirin without irritating your stomach Tylenol Arthritis take comfort in our strength welcome to the most exciting show in late night the only show with Lizzy sleepover politically incorrect with Bill Maher coming up on ABC from birth to age three are the most important years in a child's brain development the time that defines who they become John Henry Faulk was among those who interviewed ex-slaves Faulk kept detailed notebooks of his travels and interviews with former slaves and even tried once to pass for blank he told an interviewer just before his death in 1979 I really I really out getting cum educated on blacks and they promise if we call them colored folks if some of you think you recognize the name John Henry Faulk you're right he was a famous radio personality in the 1950s he was also denounced and eventually blacklisted for among other things championing the rights of blacks to vote but we're getting ahead of ourselves we can thank the depression for the existence of the slave narratives that is when John Henry Faulk folklorist John Lomax his son Allen and writers like Zora Neale Hurston the celebrated Harlem Renaissance writer were touring the south to gather accounts of african-american folk traditions the subject of slavery was not on their minds nobody was going around saying oh now we've got another former slave recording but then little by little they they started becoming a category known to scholars and linguists the audio tapes of the ex-slaves have been in the archives of the Library of Congress and various libraries around the country since the late 1940s Kathy Farnell who works with the Institute of language and culture in Clanton Alabama is one of the people responsible for the clarity of the ex-slave narrative tapes now part of a recently released audio and book package called remembering slavery produced by the Smithsonian Institution and Public Radio International what I found out was that the technology did not exist to bring these recordings up to broadcast quality by taking out the background static that technology got invented in the early 1990s hearing the tapes had a profound effect on everyone who worked with them well I was truly amazed when I first heard the recorded interviews I just fell in love with fountain he had the type of emotions that that I really liked he had anger and so it felt good to me it validated for me my feeling that this was a horrible horrible thing to happen to any people but John Henry Faulk may have experienced the most profound effect he was a graduate student when he interviewed the former slaves including the two women you hear in this broadcast himself interviewed just before he died in 1979 Falk was going on about how he believed in giving blacks the right to go to school giving them the right to vote giving them the right to go into anything they qualified for and then he said he experienced an epiphany yes now on a lag in time with this old black man and this telling what a different kind of white man I was I remember him looking at me fair saddling kind of sweetly and condescending and say you know you still got the disease honey I know you think you're cured but you're not cured you can't give me the right to be a human being I'm born with that right now you can keep me from having that if you've got all the policemen and all the jobs on your side you can deprive me up but you can give it to me cuz I've born with it just like it was my god it had a profound effect on me I'm furious with him but the more reflect out the more profoundly in effect I realized this was where it really was but the final word belongs to fountain Hughes when asked by his interviewer which he would rather be free or slave he answered with intensity rather be you know what I'd rather do you find so any not that I'd ever be a slave again my table ended all right away you could hear nothing but a dull another city but ago I'll be back with a closing thought in a moment remember life in the fast lane i do' first you meet then you get married and things slow down yeah right to help you keep up drive a supercharged Regal GS sport sedan plenty of room standard traction control and the most power in its class hey you haven't slowed down why should your car Reagle by Buick official car of the supercharged family there's a new force you can use to help you have small business introducing Sprint business flex a new communications plan you can adapt to help your business grow and toll-free long-distance global service and more business Lex adapts along with you you're in control so charge ahead and feel free to make the right moves plus with business flex you get a monthly bonus that can grow as you grow so your success can really pay off 188 sprint fish we help your business do more business what I want there's no telling what a storm may bring with it ABC is taking that worry by storm stephen king's dawn of the century february 1999 see it first on ABC then read the book to good I'm so glad we made it look how far we've come dharma & greg ABC Wednesday 8:00 7:00 central Sunday he inspired millions have dr. King and touch the heart of one little girl you do what you think is right I think it's right tomorrow to stand up for what she believed in why are you here with all these people to be free and join the fight for freedom made a big difference it's a world television premiere with jurnee smollett Yolanda Kane Clifton Powell Mackenzie Astin and a special introduction by Coretta Scott King selma Lord Selma ABC Sunday at 7 6 central at a time when we're inclined to minimize or even forget the scale of passing justices the voices we've heard tonight have an importance far beyond their number professor Orlando Patterson of Harvard has written that it is not surprising that freedom and the love of it have often been born in slave holding societies in ancient Greece to cite one example among the slaveholding founders of our own country to cite another the existence of slavery in such society says professor Patterson elevates freedom makes it more precious more valuable not only to those who are not free but to those who are this broadcast I'd like to add was lovingly compiled and largely created by our own senior producer Karen DeWitt that's our report for tonight I'm Ted Koppel in Washington for all of us here at ABC News good if you'd like a transcript or video cassette of this or any other edition of Nightline please dial