Slave Lullabies in the American South: Mothers' Voices Recovered


Songs From The Slave Narratives


A Note On The Language Of The Narratives


More On The Slave Narratives

What Are Field Recordings?

Three Slave Lullabies

Other Songs From The Slave Narratives

Musical Clips

More Listening: Musical Collections

More Reading: Books And Articles On Folk Music, African American Music, And Songs For Children

The Buzzard In African American Folklore



A Note On The Language Of The Narratives

The Library of Congress notes that the interviewers sent out to talk with former slaves were told to transcribe the interviews as spoken. However, the former slaves were African American, the interviewers were white, and "by the 1930s, when the interviews took place, white representations of black speech already had an ugly history of entrenched stereotype dating back at least to the early nineteenth century." This means that the transcriptions may offend some of today's readers.

Judith Tick
Senior Research Analyst, Feminist Sexual Ethics Project

Melissa J. de Graaf
Research Analyst, Feminist Sexual Ethics Project




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