Oral history interview with Floyd Alston Jr., November 29, 1995
Subtitle: interview Q-0002, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: McCoy, James Eddie (James Edward), 1942- interviewer; Alston, Ethel Thorpe, 1916- interviewee; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American men; African American women; African American families; African Americans; Social life and customs
Other titles: Interview Q-0002, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Floyd Alston Jr., November 29, 1995; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Granville County, North Carolina, residents Floyd Alston (in his sixties in 1995) and his mother, Ethel Thorpe Alston, remember their lives in the area in this interview. Floyd and Ethel trace their family lines, some of which lead to slaves, others to sharecroppers, some to brothers and sisters who died, still others to factory workers. This interview offers more information on the Alston and Thorpe families than it does about African Americans' lives in the rural South generally, but it does offer some revealing insights into racial identity and the struggles of post-emancipation African Americans to find economic and social security.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: Floyd Alston Jr., interviewee; Ethel Thorpe Alston, interviewee; Eddie McCoy, interviewer.

Duration: 00:58:50.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 130.1 kilobytes, 107 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series Q, African American life and culture, interview Q-0002, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 25 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.