Episode Summary:
While working on the WPA Florida guidebook, the Federal Writers’ Project team – including Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy – documented a wide range of life from prison camps to soup kitchens to hair salons, in recordings that reveal a living culture and enduring traditions.
Hurston and Kennedy traveled the state, recording people’s stories and songs. That included a visit to a remote turpentine work site where they encountered a forced labor camp and the brutal conditions in a form of slavery that continued well into the 20th century.
Project interviewers in Florida also searched for survivors of pre-Civil War slavery and gathered hundreds of interviews. Nationally, thousands of “ex-slave interviews” are treasures for understanding that lived experience. But the Project’s written interviews should be read with caution. Historians remind us that those manuscripts are complicated and often reinforced racial bias and stereotypes. Historian Tameka Hobbs helps put this work in context and brings it alive.
Speakers:
Peggy Bulger, folklorist
Maryemma Graham, literary historian
Tameka Hobbs, historian
Stetson Kennedy, author and Project alum
James McBride, novelist
Ernest Toole, folk musician
Flo Turcotte, historian
Links and Resources:
"Turpentine Camp, Cross City" typescript essay by Zora Neale Hurston
"Viola Muse Digital Edition" Digital Archive of Muse's Writers' Project work
Zora Neale Hurston Collection at the University of Florida
Ernest Toole Spotify Artist Page
Further Reading:
WPA Guide to Florida
Go Gator and Muddy the Water by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Pamela Bordelon
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
To Walk About in Freedom, by Carole Emberton
These Are Our Lives, life histories from the Federal Writers’ Project
Conchtown USA: Bahamian Fisherfolk in Riviera Beach, Florida, by Charles C. Foster
Credits:
Host: Chris Haley
Director: Andrea Kalin
Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor and James Mirabello
Writer: David A. Taylor
Editor: Ethan Oser
Story Editor: Michael May
Additional Voices: Jared Buggage
Featuring music and archival material from:
Joseph Vitarelli
Bradford Ellis
Pond5
Library of Congress
For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder
Produced with support from:
National Endowment for the Humanities
Florida Humanities
Stetson Kennedy Foundation
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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