In the 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project hired writers to interview as many former slaves as they could find and document their lives during slavery. With this volume, Blair continues its Real Voices, Real History series with selections from interviews with former Alabama slaves. It also includes an excerpt from Thirty Years a Slave by Louis Hughes. Williams is the founding director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch Project and editor-in-chief of NewSouth Books in Montgomery, Alabama.