Before and After Freedom: Lowcountry Folklore and Narratives

In the late 1930s the Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began an undertaking to document the history and folklore of South Carolina as told by surviving slaves and their descendents. What was produced over the five-and-half-year project was an extensive collection—thousands of written pages—of African American folklore that had been passed down through generations and, until then, had never before been put to paper. Before and After Freedom is a collection of authe...