Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves [Paperback]

Charles L. Perdue Jr. (Author), Thomas E. Barden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1991

Taken from the records of the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s, these interviews with one-time Virginia slaves provide a clear window into what it was like to be enslaved in the antebellum American South.

Editorial Reviews

Review

""In contrast to Gone with the Wind-style histories which suggest slavery wasn't all that bad, we have here the slaves' own view of life under the peculiar institution. Seventy-five years after the end of the Civil War, the emotion which comes through these narratives most strongly, and which seems to have characterized daily life under slavery, is terror..[The book] is a major contribution to Afro-American history and anthropology." -- Southern Exposure

"[This] is one of the most valuable books on slavery to appear in recent years, and it is one of the most fascinating. The recovery and publication of all the surviving Federal Writers' Project interviews with former Virginia slaves is an event of major scholarly importance in the ongoing effort to understand what it meant to be black and enslaved in the antebellum South." -- Virginia Quarterly Review

"Here is oral history at its best." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

About the Author

Charles L. Perdue Jr., Associate Professor of Folklore and Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia, is the editor of Outwitting the Devil: Jack Tales from Wise County Virginia. Thomas E. Barden, Professor of English at Toledo University, is the author of The Travles of Peter Woodhouse: Memoir of an American Pioneer and editor of Virginia Folk Legends (Virginia). Robert K. Phillips is Professor of English at Lander College, Greenwood, South Carolina.

Product Details

• Paperback: 405 pages
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press (December 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813913705
• ISBN-13: 978-0813913704
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #547,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interviews of Ex-Enslaved Persons by African Americans, January 3, 2006

By 

Robert W. Kellemen "Doc. K." (Crown Point, IN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves (Paperback)

One of the great advantages of the Virginia slave interviews was that over 90% of the interviewers were African Americans. As the ex-enslaved persons themselves noted, they would and could be much more honest, even 70 years after Emancipation, with their fellow African Americans then they ever could be with White interviewers. This text contains hundreds of such interviews that provide graphic details of life during and after slavery.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction." He has also authored "Soul Physicians," "Spiritual Friends," and the forthcoming "Sacred Friendships: Listening to the Voices of Women Soul Care-Givers and Spiritual Directors."