The Complicated Path to Freedom

Juneteenth reminds us that the legal abolition of slavery was just the beginning of the personal and collective struggles to overcome America's original sin.

A slave cabin in Barbour County, near Eufaula, Alabama, circa 1936-1938, documented from the 1930s Federal Writer's Project: “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives.” (Photo by History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Living in a time of instantaneous, global communication, it can be hard to imagine how slow or difficult it often was in the mid-19th century to learn about world-altering news. Looking back, it’s easy to assume such profound events as the Emancipation Proclamation taking effect on Jan. 1, 1863 or the December 1865 ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery were immediate turning points in the lives of millions of people. The celebration of Juneteenth—when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to ensure that all enslaved people would be freed—is a reminder of both the varied timetables and the diverse responses to the abolition of slavery.

Here’s how Frederick Douglass described Jan. 1, 1863: “The scene was wild and grand. Joy and gladness exhausted all forms of expression, from shouts of praise to joys and tears.” Later, in 1876, he offered a further reflection: “Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget…the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Inspiring stuff, elements of progress and celebration neatly circumscribed—except the reality and meaning played out in so many different ways in the months and years that followed. “For many people, the process went on for years,” historian Amy Murrell Taylor told The Washington Post. “I think we miss the actions of enslaved people, how pivotal they were in pushing emancipation forward, when we focus just on one moment.”

To get a better sense of that momentous time, I pored through a number of narratives of formerly enslaved people documented in the late 1930s by members of the Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal agency in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). (In all, they interviewed over 2,300 former slaves.) I want to share a handful of them today, this 19th of June, this second time in our nation’s history when we officially celebrate Juneteenth—now a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021.

Perhaps these stories will inspire you, like they have me, to keep in mind how complicated is the unfolding story of America and how the trajectory toward freedom depends on the understanding, desire and commitment of the individuals engaged in living that history. With this in mind, these nearly century-old remembrances could not be more relevant to the challenges of our own time when democracy and justice remain so fragile and can appear so uncertain.

(One note about these transcriptions from 1937: Some of the writers aimed to craft what they heard in order to capture the particular accents and modes of speech they presumably believed were accurate. I’ve edited some of this to provide clarity and meaning.)

When President Lincoln issued his proclamation, freeing the Negroes, I remember that my father and most all of the other younger slave men left the farms to join the Union army. We had hard times then for awhile and had lots of work to do. I don’t remember just when I first regarded myself as “free” as many of the Negroes didn’t understand just what it was all about.

—Mary Crane, enslaved in Kentucky, interviewed in Indiana

Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves. We was free. Just like that, we was free. It didn’t seem to make the whites mad, either. They went right on giving us food just the same. Nobody took our homes away, but right off colored folks started on the move. They seemed to want to get closer to freedom, as they’d know what it was—like it was a place or a city.

—Felix Haywood, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas

The master, he says we is all free, but it don’t mean we is white. And it don’t mean we is equal. Just equal for to work and earn our own living and not depend on him for no more meats and clothes.

—George King, enslaved in South Carolina, interviewed in Oklahoma

When the war ended mother went to old master and told him she was going to leave. He told her she could not feed all her children, pay house rent, and buy wood—to stay on with him. Master told father and mother they could have the house free and wood free, and he would help them feed the children, but Mother said, “No, I am going to leave. I have never been free and I am going to try it. I am going away and by my work and the help of the Lord I will live somehow.” Master then said, “Well, stay as long as you wish, and leave when you get ready, but wait until you find a place to go, and leave like folks.” Master allowed her to take all her things with her when she left. The white folks told her goodbye.”

—Hannah Plummer, enslaved in North Carolina, interviewed in North Carolina

The day of freedom come around just [like] any other day, except the master say for me to bring up the horses, we is going to town. That’s when he hears about the slaves being free. We gets to the town and the master goes into the store. It’s pretty early but the streets was filled with folks talking and I wonder what makes the master in such a hurry when he comes out of the store.

He gets on his horse and tells me to follow fast. When we gets back to the plantation he sounds the horn calling the slaves. They come in from the fields and meet ’round back of the kitchen building that stood separate from the Master’s house. They all keep quiet while the master talks! “You-all is free now, and all the rest of the slaves is free, too. Nobody owns you now and nobody is going to wup you anymore!” That was good news, I reckon, but nobody knew what to do about it.

The crops was mostly in and the master wants the folks to stay ’til the crop is finished. They talk about it the rest of that day. There wasn’t no celebration ’round the place, but there wasn’t no work after the master tells us we is free.

—William Hutson, enslaved in Georgia, interviewed in Oklahoma

Master, he tell us when freedom come, and some of us stays around awhile, because what are we going [to do]? We didn’t know what to do and we didn’t know how to keep ourselves, and what was we to do to get food and a place to live? Those was hard times, because the country was tore up and the business was bad.

—George Simmons, enslaved in Alabama and Texas, interviewed in Texas

The war was begun and there were stories of fights and freedom. The news went from plantation to plantation and while the slaves acted natural and some even more polite than usual, they prayed for freedom. Then one day I heard something that sounded like thunder and missus and master began to walk around and act queer. The grown slaves were whispering to each other. Sometimes they gathered in little gangs in the grove. Next day I heard it again, boom, boom, boom. I went and asked missus “Is it going to rain?” She said, “Mary, go to the ice house and bring me some pickles and preserves.” I went and got them. She ate a little and gave me some. Then she said, “You run along and play.”

In a day or two everybody on the plantation seemed to be disturbed and Master and Missus were crying. Master ordered all the slaves to come to the great house at nine o’clock. Nobody was working and slaves were walking over the grove in every direction. At nine o’clock all the slaves gathered at the great house and master and missus came out on the porch and stood side by side. You could hear a pin drop everything was so quiet. Then Master said, “Good morning,” and Missus said, “Good morning, children.” They were both crying. Then Master said, “Men, women and children, you are free. You are no longer my slaves. The Yankees will soon be here.”

Master and Missus then went into the house, got two large arm chairs, put them on the porch facing the avenue, and sat down side by side and remained there watching. In about an hour there was one of the blackest clouds coming up the avenue from the main road. It was the Yankee soldiers, they finally filled the mile long avenue reaching from Master’s house to the main Louisburg road and spread out over the mile square grove. The mounted men dismounted. The footmen stacked their shining guns and began to build fires and cook. They called the slaves, saying “You are free.” Slaves were whooping and laughing and acting like they were crazy. Yankee soldiers were shaking hands with the Negroes and calling them Sam, Dinah, Sarah, and asking them questions. They busted the door to the smoke house and got all the hams. They went to the icehouse and got several barrels of brandy, and such a time. The Negroes and Yankees were cooking and eating together. The Yankees told them to come on and join them, they were free.

Master and Missus sat on the porch and they were so humble no Yankee bothered anything in the great house. The slaves were awfully excited. The Yankees stayed there, cooked, eat, drank and played music until about night, then a bugle began to blow and you never saw such getting on horses and lining up in your life. In a few minutes they began to march, leaving the grove which was soon silent as a grave yard. They took Master’s horses and cattle with them and joined the main army and camped just across Cypress Creek…

When they left the country [area], lot of the slaves went with them and soon there were none of master’s slaves left. They wandered around for a year from place to place, fed and working most of the time at some other slave owner’s plantation and getting more homesick every day.

—Mary Anderson, enslaved in North Carolina, interviewed in North Carolina

When the word get to us that the slaves is free, the mistress says I is free to go anywhere I want. And I tell her this talk about being free sounds like foolishment to me—anyway, where can I go? She just pat me on the shoulder and say I better stay right there with her, and that’s what I do for a long time. Then I hear about how the white folks down at Dallas pays big money for house girls and there I go.

—Esther Easter, enslaved in Missouri, interviewed in Oklahoma

I believe they ought to have given us something when we was freed, but they turned us out to graze or starve. Most of the white people turned the Negroes slam loose. We stayed a year with Missus and then she married and her husband had his own workers and told us to get out. We worked for twenty and thirty cents a day then, and I finally got a place with Dr. L. J. Conroe. But after the war the Negro had a hard struggle, because he was turned loose just like he came into the world and no education or experience.

—Tom Holland, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas

Lord, Lord, honey! It seems impossible that any of us ever lived to see that day of freedom, but thank God we did.

—Jenny Proctor, enslaved in Alabama, interviewed in Texas

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As these stories remind us, freedom is not a given—it demands we do the hard work of making and remaking the path forward. The 14th Amendment was passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, granting citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people, and providing all citizens with “equal protection under the laws.” More than 150 years later, these rights, particularly voting rights, continue to be a struggle, not only to achieve but also to maintain.

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