"Slavery As We've Heard It"

In the Fall of 1932 the students at Jonesboro Elementary School, Greensboro, N.C., under the direction of Mr. Abraham H. Peeler, undertook an oral history project to document the memories of their parents, grandparents, or relatives. They captured these memories in brief compositions, which were placed in a folder "Slavery As We’Ve Heard It."

Jonesboro School was an appropriate place to center this assignment, since it had been founded after the Civil War as one of the Julius Rosenwald "X-Y-Z" schools; if a neighborhood gave X-money, a city/county Y-money, Rosenwald would donate Z-money, to make it happen.

Jonesboro School, which had been a county school until the big City annexation of 1923, was closed after the 1983 school year.

Below is a list of the students whose essays appear in the volume. Click on the name to view their essay.

Page #
Student

1

J., Curtis

3

Gilchrist, Mabel

5

Hawkins, Otis

7

Evans, Sadie L.

9

Winter, Pauline

11

Taylor, Blondine

13

Hawkins, Hoke B.

15

Powell, Ralph

17

Burnett, Melvin

18

Lee, Nesbit

19

Wiley, Mildred

21

T., Osbey

22

Wallace, Clyde

23

Romeo

24

Dick, Mable

26

Lee, Robert

27

Stewart, Odell

28

Timmons, Carl

30

Watkins, Josephine

32

J., City

34

Pennix, Mary

36

McAdoo, Juanita

38

Wallace, Irving

40

Watkins, Willie Mae

42

McMurray, James

43

Daye, Vance

45

Lee, Emma

47

Byrd, Gladys