Edwin Driskell’s interview of former slave Mose Davis 

Between 1936 and 1938, writers and journalists working under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) interviewed more than 2,300 former slaves from across the South. Most of the men and women interviewed were born into slavery in the last years preceding the Civil War, and their first-hand accounts create a permanent record of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. Keep in mind that almost all interviews were conducted by white individuals; that situation may have altered to varying degrees the details black people shared. Nevertheless, taken together, the slave narratives offer a view of slavery in North America unlike any other. 

In one of Atlanta’s many alleys lives Mose Davis, an ex-slave who was born on a very large plantation 12 miles from Perry, Georgia.  His master was Colonel Davis, a very rich old man, who owned a large number of slaves in addition to his vast property holdings.  Mose Davis says that all the buildings on this plantation were whitewashed, the lime having been secured from a corner of the plantation known as the “the lime sink.”  Colonel Davis had a large family and so he had to have a large house to accommodate these members.  The mansion, as it was called, was a great big three-storied affair surrounded by a thick growth of cedar trees.

Mose’s parents, Jennie and January Davis, had always been the property of the Davis family, naturally he and his two brothers and two sisters never knew any other master than “The Old Colonel.”  Mr. Davis says that the first thing he remembers of his parents is being whipped by his mother who had tied him to the bed to prevent his running away.  His first recollection of his father is seeing him take a drink of whiskey from a five gallon jug.  When asked if this wasn’t against the plantation rules “Uncle Mose” replied: “The Colonel was one of the biggest devils you ever seen—he’s the one that started my daddy to drinking.  Sometimes he used to come to our house to git a drink hisself.”

Mose’s father was the family coachman.  “All that he had to do was to drive the master and his family and to take care of the two big grey horses that he drove.  Compared to my mother and the other slaves he had an easy time,” said Uncle Mose, shaking his head and smiling:  “My daddy was so crazy about the white folks and the horses he drove until I believe he thought more of them than he did of me.  One day while I was in the stable with him one of the horses tried to kick me and when I started to hit him Daddy cussed me and threatened to beat me.”

His mother, brothers, and sisters, were all field hands, but there was never any work required of Mose, who was play-mate and companion to Manning, the youngest of Colonel Davis’ five sons.  These two spent most of the time fishing and hunting.  Manning had a pony and buggy and whenever he went to town he always took Mose along.

Field hands were roused, every morning by the overseer who rang the large bell near the slave quarters.  Women and young children were permitted to remain at home until 9 o’clock to prepare breakfast.  At 9 o’clock these women had to start to the fields where they worked along with the others until sundown.  The one break in the day’s work was the noon dinner hour.  Field hands planted and tended cotton, corn, and the other produce grown on the plantation until harvest time when everybody picked cotton.  Slaves usually worked harder during the picking season than at any other time.  After harvest, the only remaining work was cleaning out fence corners, splitting rails building fences and numerous other minor tasks.  In hot weather, the only work was shelling corn.  There was no Sunday work other than caring for the stock.

On this plantation there were quite a few skilled slaves mostly blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, plasterers, and a cobbler.  One of Mose’s brothers was a carpenter.

All slaves too old for field work remained at home where some took care of the young children, while others worked in the loom houses helping make the cloth and the clothing used on the plantation.  Since no work was required at night, this time was utilized by doing personal work such as the washing and the repairing of clothing, etc.

On the Fourth of July or at Christmas Colonel Davis always had a festival for all his slaves.  Barbecue was served and there was much singing and dancing.  These frolics were made merrier by the presence of guests from other plantations.  Music was furnished by some of the slaves who also furnished music at the mansion whenever the Col. or some of the members of his family had a party.  There was also a celebration after the crops had been gathered.

Although there was only one distribution of clothing per year nobody suffered from the lack of clothes because this one lot had enough to last a year if properly cared for.  The children wore one piece garments, a cross between a dress and a slightly lengthened shirt, made of homespun or crocus material.  No shoes were given them until winter and then they got the cast-offs of the grown ups.  The men all wore pants made of material know as “susenberg.”  The shirts and under wear were made of another cotton material.  Dresses for the women were of striped homespun.  All shoes were made on the premises of the heaviest leather, clumsely fashioned and Uncle Mose says that slaves like his father who worked in the mansion, were given much better clothing.  His father received of “The Colonel” and his grown sons many discarded clothes.  One of the greatest thrills of Mose’s boyhood was receiving first pair of “ausenberg” pants.  As his mother had already taught him to knit (by using four needles at one time) all that he had to do was to go to his hiding place and get the socks that he had made.

None of the clothing worn by the slaves on this particular plantation was bought.  Everything was made by the slaves, even to the dye that was used.

Asked if there was sufficient food for all slaves, Uncle Mose said “I never heard any complaints.  At the end of each week every family was given some fat meat, black molasses, meal and flour in quantity varying with the size of the family.  At certain intervals during the week, they were given vegetables.  Here too, as in everything else, Mose’s father was more fortunate than the others, since he took all his meals at the mansion where he ate the same food served to the master and his family.  The only difference between week-day and Sunday diet was that biscuits were served on Sundays.  The children were given only one biscuit each.  In addition to the other bread was considered a delicacy.  All food stuff was grown on the plantation.

The slave quarters were located a short distance below the mansion.  The cabins one-roomed weatherboard structures were arranged so as to form a semi-circle.  There was a wide tree-lined road leading from the master’s home to these cabins.

Furnishings of each cabin consisted of one or two benches, a bed, and a few cooking untensils.  These were very crude, especially the beds.  Some of them had four posts while the ends of others were nailed to the walls.  All lumber used in their construction was very heavy and rough.  Bed springs were unheard of—wooden slats being used for this purpose.  The mattresses were large ausenberg bags stuffed to capacity with hay, straw, or leaves.  Uncle Mose told about one of the slaves, named Ike, whose entire family slept on bare pine straw.  His children were among the fattest on the plantation and when Colonel Davis tried to make him put this straw in a bag he refused claiming that the pine needles kept his children healthy.

The floors and chimneys on the Davis Plantation were made of wood and brick instead of dirt and mud as was the case on many of the other surrounding plantations.  One window (with shutters instead of window panes) served the purpose of ventilation and light.  At night pine knots or candles gave light.  The little cooking that the slaves did at home was all done at the open fireplace.
Source: From Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. Georgia Narrative, Volume IV, Part 1. http://memory.loc.gov

Document 5.11.11

Born in Crescent City, Florida, Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) graduated in 1907 from Cookman Institute in Jacksonville, the first high school for blacks in Florida. Four years later he moved to New York City and entered the vibrant milieu of Harlem. Influenced by W. E. B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folks, he began his lifelong pursuit of social and economic justice for African Americans. Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (see Lesson 12) and negotiated the first contract ever between a black union and a major American corporation. During and after World War II, Randolph was at the forefront of efforts to end racial discrimination in industry and the armed forces.  In 1957, he became the first black to be elected vice president of the AFL-CIO. He spent his life fighting for the rights of black working men and women.

“Call to the March,” a speech by A. Philip Randolph, July 1, 1941

We call upon you to fight for jobs in National defense.

We call upon you to struggle for the integration of Negroes in the armed forces, such as the Air Corps, Navy, Army and Marine Corps of the Nation.

We call upon you to demonstrate for the abolition of Jim-Crowism in all Government departments and defense employment.

This is an hour of crisis. It is a crisis of democracy. It is a crisis of minority groups. It is a crisis of Negro Americans.

What is this crisis?

To American Negroes, it is the denial of jobs in Government defense projects. It is racial discrimination in Government departments. It is widespread Jim-Crowism in the armed forces of the Nation.

While billions of the taxpayers’ money are being spent for war weapons, Negro workers are being turned away from the gates of factories, mines and mills––being flatly told, “NOTHING DOING.” Some employees refuse to give Negroes jobs when they are without “union cards,” and some unions refuse Negro workers union cards when they are “without jobs.”

What shall we do?

What a dilemma!

What a runaround!

What a disgrace!

What a blow below the belt!

‘Though dark, doubtful and discouraging, all is not lost, all is not hopeless. ‘Though battered and bruised, we are not beaten, broken or bewildered.

Verily, the Negroes’ deepest disappointments and direst defeats, their tragic trials and outrageous oppressions in these dreadful days of destruction and disaster to democracy and freedom, and the rights of minority peoples, and the dignity and independence of the human spirit, is the Negroes’ greatest opportunity to rise to the highest heights of struggle for freedom and justice in Government, in industry, in labor unions, education, social service, religion and culture.

With faith and confidence of the Negro people in their own power for self-liberation, Negroes can break down the barriers of discrimination against employment in National Defense. Negroes can kill the deadly serpent of race hatred in the Army, Navy, Air and Marine Corps, and smash through and blast the Government, business and labor-union red tape to win the right to equal opportunity in vocational training and re-training in defense employment.

Most important and vital to all, Negroes, by the mobilization and coordination of their mass power, can cause PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TO ISSUE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ABOLISHING DISCRMINATIONS IN ALL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, ARMY, NAVY, AIR CORPS AND NATIONAL DEFENSE JOBS.

Of course, the task is not easy. In very truth, it is big, tremendous and difficult.

It will cost money.

It will require sacrifice.

It will tax the Negroes’ courage, determination and will to struggle. But we can, must and will triumph.

The Negroes’ stake in national defense is big. It consists of jobs, thousands of jobs. It may represent millions, yes, hundreds of millions of dollars in wages. It consists of new industrial opportunities and hope. This is worth fighting for.

But to win our stakes, it will require an “all-out,” bold and total effort and demonstration of colossal proportions.

Negroes can build a mammoth machine of mass action with a terrific and tremendous driving and striking power that can shatter and crush the evil fortress of race prejudice and hate, if they will only resolve to do so and never stop, until victory comes.

Dear fellow Negro Americans, be not dismayed in these terrible times. You possess power, great power. Our problem is to harness and hitch it up for action on the broadest, daring and most gigantic scale.

In this period of power politics, nothing counts but pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure, through the tactic and strategy of broad, organized, aggressive mass action behind the vital and important issues of the Negro. To this end, we propose that ten thousand Negroes MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS IN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND EQUAL INTEGRATION IN THE FIGHTING FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES.

An “all-out” thundering march on Washington, ending in a monster and huge demonstration at Lincoln’s Monument will shake up white America.

It will shake up official Washington.

It will give encouragement to our white friends to fight all the harder by our side, with us, for our righteous cause.

It will gain respect for the Negro people.

It will create a new sense of self-respect among Negroes.

But what of national unity?

We believe in national unity which recognizes equal opportunity of black and white citizens to jobs in national defense and the armed forces, and in all other institutions and endeavors in America. We condemn all dictatorships, Fascist, Nazi and Communist. We are loyal, patriotic Americans, all.

But, if American democracy will not defend its defenders; if American democracy will not protect its protectors; if American democracy will not give jobs to its toilers because of race or color; if American democracy will not insure equality of opportunity, freedom and justice to its citizens, black and white, it is a hollow mockery and belies the principles for which it is supposed to stand.

To the hard, difficult and trying problem of securing equal participation in national defense, we summon all Negro Americans to march on Washington. We summon Negro Americans to form committees in various cities to recruit and register marchers and raise funds through the sale of buttons and other legitimate means for the expenses of marchers to Washington by buses, train, private automobiles, trucks, and on foot.

We summon Negro Americans to stage marches on their City Halls and Councils in their respective cities and urge them to memorialize the President to issue an executive order to abolish discrimination in the Government and national defense.

However, we sternly counsel against violence and ill-considered and intemperate action and the abuse of power. Mass power, like physical power, when misdirected is more harmful than helpful.

We summon you to mass action that is orderly and lawful, but aggressive and militant, for justice, equality and freedom.

Crispus Attucks marched and died as a martyr for American independence. Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass fought, bled and died for the emancipation of Negro slaves and the preservation of American democracy.

Abraham Lincoln, in times of the grave emergency of the Civil War, issued the Proclamation of Emancipation for the freedom of Negro slaves and the preservation of American democracy.

Today, we call upon President Roosevelt, a great humanitarian and idealist, to follow in the footsteps of his noble and illustrious predecessor and take the second decisive step in this world and national emergency and free American Negro citizens of the stigma, humiliation and insult of discrimination and Jim-Crowism in Government departments and national defense.

The Federal Government cannot with clear conscience call upon private industry and labor unions to abolish discrimination based upon race and color as long as it practices discrimination itself against Negro Americans.

Source: The Black Worker, May 1941Reprinted in Meier, August, ed. Black Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1971.

Document 5.14.2

Demands handed to President Roosevelt by African American leaders on June 18, 1941

PROPOSALS OF THE NEGRO MARCH-ON-WASHINGTON COMMITTEE

TO

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT

FOR

URGENT CONSIDERATION

POINT 1.  An executive order forbidding the awarding of contracts to any concern, Navy 

      Yard or Army Arsenal which refuses employment to qualified persons on    

                   account of race, creed or color. In the event that such discrimination

                   continues to exist, the Government shall take over the plant for continuous

                   operation, by virtue of the authority vested in the President of the United

                   States, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and as expressed in the

                   Proclamation declaring a state of unlimited national emergency, May 27, 1941.

POINT 2.  An executive order abolishing discrimination and segregation on account of

                  race,  creed or color in all departments of the Federal Government.

POINT 3.  An executive order abolishing discrimination in vocational and defense training 

                  courses for workers in National Defense whether financed in whole or in part by

                  the Federal Government.

POINT 4.  An executive order abolishing discrimination in the Army, Navy, Marine, Air 

                  Corps and all other branches of the armed services.

POINT 5.  That the President ask the Congress to pass a law forbidding the benefits of the

                  National Labor Relations Act to Labor Unions denying Negroes membership

                  through Constitutional provisions, ritualistic practices or otherwise.

POINT 6.  That the President issue instructions to the United States Employment Services

                  that available workers be supplied in order of their registration without regard to

                  race, creed or color.

Source: “March on Washington Movement: Principles and Structures” folder,  A. Phillip Randolph Papers, Library of Congress

Document 5.14.4

Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces, issued by President Truman, July 26, 1948

In December 1946, President Harry Truman created the President’s Committee on Civil Rights to investigate violations and recommend improvements. The committee issued a report To Secure These Rights. It highlighted the lack of progress and recommended specific Congressional actions. However, Congress failed to respond. President Truman bypassed the legislative body. Executive Order 9981 was one of two executive orders he issued July 26, 1948.  The other one put in place fair employment practices in civilian agencies of the federal government.

Establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity In the Armed Forces. 

WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense: 

NOW THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows: 

1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. 

2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President. 

3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine the rules, procedures and practices of the Armed Services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof. 

4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties. 

5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Governemt shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require. 

6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive order. 

Harry Truman The White House
July 26, 1948

Document 5.14.13