Today's students understandably have a hard time imagining what life for slaves more than 150 years ago was like. The best way to communicate what slaves experienced is to hear their words directly. The material in this concise single-volume work illuminates the lives of the last living generation of enslaved people in the United States--former slaves who were interviewed about their experiences in the 1930s. Based on more than 2,000 interviews, the transcriptions of these priceless interviews offer primary sources that tell a diverse and powerful picture of life under slavery.

The book...