Southern University’s Library Tells More Stories of Former Slaves as it Expands Online Archives

From The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA):

The John B. Cade Library at Southern University recently expanded its online archive of slave stories, accounts told by former slaves who were interviewed in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The stories further a collection that had been compiled by the library’s namesake, who began collecting them even before serving as a dean at Southern from 1939-61.

Cade sent students to gather these personal accounts while the former slaves were still alive. The library digitized and posted more than 200 such narratives in 2014.

The additional stories, all testimonies of former slaves living in Louisiana, are part of a separate project by the Works Progress Administration, which operated during the Great Depression

Angela V. Proctor, the university’s head archivist and digital librarian, and two staff members have made the typewritten original stories accessible for researchers and the public.

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Direct to Southern University’s Digital Collections Portal

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