Unchained Memories - Readings from the Slave Narratives (2002)

Synopsis: The Federal Writers Project, a division of the New Deal's Works Progress Association, was commissioned during the Great Depression to collect and record memories and archives from the last living generation of African-Americans born into slavery. Throughout the 1930s, journalists and... The Federal Writers Project, a division of the New Deal's Works Progress Association, was commissioned during the Great Depression to collect and record memories and archives from the last living generation of African-Americans born into slavery. Throughout the 1930s, journalists and writers accumulated stories and photographs from former slaves and would release "The Slave Narratives of 1936-1938" with over 2300 first-person accounts of this horrifying period in American history. This documentary project contains 75 minutes of these histories read by prominent African-American actors such as Oprah Winfrey, Ossie Davis, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Ruby Dee, and Angela Bassett. The program also contains many of the archival photographs that were collected in the WPA project. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. [More]