Through this interview, we can learn about all the hardships that African Americans had to go through during slavery and even post slavery. For example, I learned that after slavery ended, many African Americans ended up on the streets. They didn’t own any property and didn’t have any money, so they would have to sleep in alleys and on posts.1 It is sad to see all the pain from being sold into slavery to not owning any property to being separated from your family. Most people don’t think about all the suffering that these people went through.
I think it is interesting how the two layers of the timeline intersect. It shows how events happening around the world and in the United States can affect what is going on in somebody’s life. For example, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and shortly after, the Civil War broke out and Fountain Hughes received his freedom from slavery. This just shows how everything you do can intertwine with each other. It is interesting to see how historians cover large topics going on in the world, but then don’t cover the small issues or topics that affect so many people.
Personally, I never thought about the fact that young slave boys didn’t receive a pair of shoes until they were at least twelve. It is something that never occurred to me as important until listening to Uncle Fountain. Also, the topic of not being able to spend the little money you made until you were twenty-one was surprising to me.
This interview is useful because it gives a first-hand view of what young slave children endure during their childhood. Fountain lived with his mother and brothers. They each had a job to do on the plantation. It can really make you emotional hearing them describe the harships in their life. However, oral history as a primary source is difficult because many times they don’t remember dates, just the events that occurred. It is always important to consider dates with relativity to history and with oral history, you don’t get that perspective.
I think it is important to listen to the voices of the interviewer and interviewee. First, this helps to understand the different dialects of a person and to possibly think about where they are from. Also, with this is many slaves didn’t receive an education and therefore after being freed they still weren’t educated. It can be heard in the interview different slang terms, due to not necessarily being highly educated.2
This interview can help understand the position that many African Americans were in, in the 1930’s. Their family most likely was not well off and therefore they were living in poverty with little property. This makes it hard to enjoy life and go out and do things because you are always working to make money.
- “Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949.” The Library of Congress. Accessed October 25, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1950037_afs09990a/.
- Tilton, and Lauren. “Race and Place: Dialect and the Construction of Southern Identity in the Ex-Slave Narratives.” Current Research in Digital History, January 1, 1970. http://crdh.rrchnm.org/essays/v02-14-race-and-place/.
