Please note that the format of these interviews varies widely. While most are transcriptions of the actual words spoken by the formerly enslaved people, some are third-person summaries of the interviews written by the interviewee. Also note that most of the interviewers were white (only about 17% were African American). As a result some interviewees may have depicted slavery in a positive light so as to not offend their white interviewer and/or challenge the racial hierarchy. Additionally, many of the interviewers chose to use Black dialect when transcribing the words of the formerly enslaved (including some African American WPA interviewers). Other interviewers chose to use standard English, rather than dialect, when transcribing the interviews they conducted.

Because of the different ways the interviewers chose to transcribe their interviews, we decided to standardize the transcriptions using standard English (e.g., master instead of massa; them instead of dem). We wanted to emphasize the content of these oral histories, rather than have the interviewers’ transcription choices distract readers.