Together for the first time, these slave narratives from Sumter County, Alabama -- most of them collected by Ruby Pickens Tartt under the auspices of the WPA -- offer rich insight into the periods of the Civil War and Reconstruction. (Collected during the Great Depression, they naturally reflect on that period also, if one reads between the lines.) The tales are by turns sad, shocking, and humorous; some are organized as stories, some as character sketches, some as litanies of intermingled remembrances and complaints -- whatever their organization, they each evoke a time in our joint American history that must not be forgotten.