Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories
"It's no stretch to compare Genevieve Chandler with William Faulkner, for both writers present us with entire worlds, complex flesh and blood worlds where the simple virtues of honesty, courage, and generosity not only endure but triumph. This oral history collection is a treasure."--William P. Baldwin, author of The Hard to Catch Mercy and Lowcountry Plantations Today"The past, as Faulkner reminded us long ago, is never dead; it isn't even past. In this landmark work, Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin and Aaron McCullough have recovered the long-forgotten voices of former slaves and their descendants. First collected by Genevieve W. Chandler during the New Deal, these interviews shed light on a world that is at once distant and all too near.Coming Throughreminds us anew of the great American tragedy of slavery and of its long, grim shadow of segregation. But it is a reminder, too, of the indomitability of the spirit of those who endured the seemingly unendurable, and lived to tell the tale. This is an important and seminal work."--Jon Meacham, editor ofNewsweekand author ofAmerican Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation