Voices Out of Bondage
The U.S. Library of Congress’ remarkable collection of recorded interviews with former slaves
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“I’m the oldest one that I know that’s living. But, still, I’m thankful to the Lord. Now, if, uh, if my master wanted send me, he never say, you couldn’t get a horse and ride. You walk, you know, you walk. And you be barefooted and collapse. That didn’t make no difference. You wasn’t no more than a dog to some of them in them days. You wasn’t treated as good as they treat dogs now. But still I didn’t like to talk about it. Because it makes, makes people feel bad you know. Uh, I, I could say a whole lot I don’t like to say. And I won’t say a whole lot more.”
— Fountain Hughes in 1949, reflecting on his childhood in slavery
On 11 June 1949, Hermond Norwood sat down to record an interview with Fountain Hughes in Hughes’ modest Baltimore living room.
Neither interviewer nor interviewee was in any way famous. Norwood was not a journalist or historian, but rather an engineer employed by the U.S. Library of Congress. Hughes was a very elderly African-American man of unknown age who had worked for most of his life as a manure hauler in Baltimore. But one thing made the interview extraordinary — Hughes was one of a dwindling number of people able to give a first-hand account of what it was like to live in the United States of America as the property of another person.
The quality of the audio is generally good, and you can even hear traffic in the background. Norwood sounds cheerful, addressing Hughes as “Uncle Fountain” and encouraging him to talk. At the start, Hughes is clearly unfamiliar with and a little bit skeptical of the recording equipment. But he quickly settles into a rhythm. “My name is Fountain Hughes,” he says, slowly and clearly. “I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. My grandfather belong to Thomas Jefferson. My grandfather was a hundred and fifteen years old when he died. And now I am one hundred and, and one year old.”
We don’t know exactly when Hughes was born, as few records were kept of people born in slavery unless they were sold (which Hughes never was). He claimed it was 1849, although based on later census records, a date in the late 1850s is more likely. His grandfather was probably…
