The collection commonly known as the WPA Slave Narrative contains histories provided by formerly enslaved people undertaken by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1938. Twenty-one of those interviewed had lived in Durham and Orange Counties in slavery and/or freedom. Most recalled invasions by both Confederate and Union troops and conditions after emancipation. New online research tools allow us to build fuller biographies of some of these oral history subjects, including one Chapel Hill native who performed as an Ethiopian princess
