In the mid-nineteenth century, white abolitionists interviewed current slaves in an effort to use their testimony to create interest in a war to stop the slavery. Often, the white abolitionists would change the words of the slaves so that they would be more in line with the English language. After The Civil War, interest in the slaves, their tumultuous lives, and their stories began to fade away. In the 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project was formed in an effort to collect as many slaves' stories as possible to record this part of American history before it was too late. Two books were published because of those efforts, but thousands of other stories remained in the archives at the Library of Congress. These writers interviewed the former slaves and wrote down their stories word for word. Published in 1968, this book chronicles what it was like To Be...