Exhibit: Agatha Babino’s Story: A Narrative of the Formerly Enslaved

Details

Survival in general was hard in the 1800s, and brutal if you were enslaved. This exhibit covers three critical periods of inhumanity and efforts toward humanity - slavery, emancipation, and reconstruction.

Visitors will discover what enslaved people endured based on the historical case of Agatha Babino’s published Slave Narrative in the Library of Congress.

What is a Slave Narrative? During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Writers' Project Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives, 1936-1938, collected over 2,300 interviews from formerly enslaved African Americans. Over 300 of these interviewees were taken from people living in Texas.  The WPA narratives evidence the intention of formerly enslaved people to reconstruct and reshape their lives despite the hardships and challenges surrounding them.

When our visitors look into one person’s journey, we hope to inspire families to dig deep into their families’ journeys, discover the hardships and lifestyles their ancestors endured, and find out what brought their families to Texas. Why? Individuals and families will appreciate the present by viewing how oppression was real and why equality for everyone matters.