The Faces Behind the Chains: Thousands of Interviews, Memoirs & Life Stories of Former Slaves
Slave Narratives, Abolitionist Testimony, and FreedomBy Aphra Behn, Thomas Clarkson, Daniel Drayton, Louis Hughes, Austin Steward, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Moses Grandy, William Still, Nat Turner, Henry Bibb, Olaudah Equiano, Sojourner Truth, Mary Prince, Kate Drumgoold, Frederick Douglass, Brantz Mayer, Theodore Canot, Booker T. Washington, Elizabeth Keckley, Charles Ball, Solomon Northup, Josiah Henson, Stephen Smith, Ellen Craft, William Craft, John Gabriel Stedman, Sarah H. Bradford, Lucy A. Delaney, L. S. Thompson, F. G. De Fontaine, Henry Box Brown, John Dixon Long, Harriet Jacobs, Jacob D. Green, Work Projects Administration, Thomas S. Gaines, Willie Lynch, Margaretta Matilda Odell, Joseph Mountain
Length482h 37m
About this audiobook
The Faces Behind the Chains assembles a capacious documentary literature of slavery, emancipation, resistance, and remembrance. Through autobiographical narrative, dictated testimony, abolitionist reportage, travel writing, interview, and political polemic, it traces the human realities obscured by the institution's legal and economic abstractions. Accounts of flight, family separation, literacy, maritime captivity, self-purchase, and post-emancipation rebuilding reveal both the formal variety and ethical urgency of Black Atlantic life writing. Its contributors encompass formerly enslaved men and women, antislavery activists, chroniclers, reformers, and later interview projects, bringing together voices from the eighteenth century through the twentieth. The volume belongs to the traditions of the slave narrative, abolitionist print culture, Reconstruction memory, and archival oral history. Their differing social positions and modes of testimony illuminate how personal experience became evidence, advocacy, and historical record, while also inviting readers to consider mediation, publication, and preservation. Recommended for students and general readers alike, this collection offers an unusually broad entry into the literature and history of enslavement. Its many perspectives reward comparative reading, fostering dialogue between intimate recollection and public argument. Readers will find a valuable resource for understanding resistance, survival, and the enduring struggle to represent lives lived under bondage.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory, Literary Classics
Length482 hrs 37 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 19, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Battles of the Civil War: 5 Classic Books on American Warfare
26Henry Cheatam
2The Faces Behind the Chains: Thousands of Interviews, Memoirs & Life Stories of Former Slaves
27Laura Clark
3Recorded Life Stories of Former Slaves from 17 different US States
28Hattie Clayton
4ALABAMA
29Wadley "Shorty" Clemons
5Charlie Aarons
30William Colbert
Show all chaptersShow less
6Anthony Abercrombie
31Tildy Collins
7Molly Ammond (Ammonds)
32Sara Colquitt
8Charity Anderson
33Mandy McCullough Cosby
9Gus Askew
34Emma Crockett
10Tom Baker
35Cheney Cross
11Henry Barnes
36Matilda Pugh Daniel
12Nathan Beauchamp
37Carrie Davis
13Oliver Bell
38Clara Davis
14Nelson Birdsong
39George Dillard
15Ank Bishop
40Ella Dilliard
16Siney Bonner
41Rufus Dirt
17Jennie Bowen
42Katherine Eppes
18Nannie Bradfield
43Reuben Fitzpatrick
19Martha Bradley
44Heywood Ford
20Allen Brown
45Bert Frederick
21Gus Brown
46Delia Garlic
22Walter Calloway
47Angie Garrett
23Esther King Casey
48Henry Garry
24Amy Chapman
49Georgia
25Emma Chapman
50Fannie Gibson
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