"Remarkably articulate ... vivid, moving, and often beautifully cadenced."
--The New Yorker
"A rich source of cultural information.... Eloquent and important."
--The New York Times
Publisher Web Site, June, 2004
Summary
In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned an oral history of the remaining former slaves.
Bullwhip Days is a remarkable compendium of selections from these extraordinary interviews, providing an unflinching
portrait of the world of government-sanctioned slavery of Africans in America. Here are twenty-nine full narrations,
as well as nine sections of excerpts related to particular aspects of slave life, from religion to plantation life
to the Reconstruction era. Skillfully edited, these chronicles bear eloquent witness to the trials of slaves in
America, reveal the wide range of conditions of human bondage, and provide sobering insight into the roots of racism
in today's society.