Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2019/Fall/Section 1/Isaac Slaughter

Isaac Slaughter

Overview

Isaac Slaughter (15 March 1845 - sometime after 1940), ex-slave, was interviewed by Jennie Sue Williams for the Federal Writers' Project papers in Alabama. He was a caring, hard working father and brother who strived to provide a living for his family and himself during the Great Depression.

Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2019/Fall/Section 1/Isaac Slaughter
Education	None
Occupation	Worker on railroads, butcher, farmer
Spouse(s)	Widowed
Children	Alice Slaughter, Mary Slaughter, Tura Berry, Earl Slaughter

Biography

Early Life

Isaac Slaughter was born in 1845 in Greensboro, Georgia. He was in fact born as the slave of John I. Slaughter. During the years he was in Georgia, Slaughter claims that he was present during the Civil War on Flint River in Georgia and that he had seen dead bodies lying on the ground. This event eventually led him to experience trauma. In the following years, Slaughter moved to Dadeville, Alabama along with his sister and the Slaughter family. After living in Dadeville, Alabama, he resided in Fort Payne, Alabama for a while. During his time in Fort Payne, Alabama, Slaughter had a job on the railroad. He moved to Bridgeport, Alabama in 1891.

During his early years in Bridgeport, he worked at the ice plant until he started working as a butcher for Mr. Ciders. His job was essentially to raise the animals such as pigs, sheep and cattle in the slaughter pen for Mr. Ciders to slaughter them. As a result of this job, he became familiar to people in Bridgeport with his bloody smell and ragged clothing. He was known for about ten or twelve dogs following him on the streets because of the smell that is permeated on him with a strong unpleasant odor. When he eventually stopped working as a butcher, he started working on the farm growing vegetables.

A photo of Isaac Slaughter from the Alabama Writers' Project Collection

Later Life

For the rest of his life, Slaughter resided in the same house which his daughter Tura Berry (Tura Slaughter) owned. Tura was one of the best practical nurses in Bridgeport. Her career let her have a relatively more comfortable life, therefore, she was able to provide a house for her father, Isaac. The house they lived in consisted of four rooms, was painted white and green. In their living room there existed an overstuffed living suite, wool rug and a floor lamp. Isaac Slaughter’s room consisted of a white bed, round table and curtains. In the corner of his room, Slaughter had a “playhouse” as Tura calls it. When Slaughter didn’t work, he would build a fire and sing songs and look at his picture books and magazines that he kept in the playhouse. Isaac Slaughter belonged to the Primitive Baptist Church and he had been a member of the church for about 25 years. Not much is known about the end of Isaac Slaughter’s life.

Social Issues

Poverty During The Great Depression

Slaughter and his family members had to strive for a living by working twice as hard as non colored people at their era, especially when the depression had hit Alabama so hard to the point where many working people, especially colored people, had to experience hunger and joblessness worse than they had ever had. The African American people viewed this period of time where they were hungry and jobless “as the greater evil”. Many African Americans struggled to find jobs so they had to start their own jobs and work on their own accounts. According to the Library of Congress, the African-American unemployment rate was approximately 50 percent in the year of 1932. Even if they could find jobs, the payment that they got was barely enough for twenty-five cents worth of sugar per week at a house where that amount of sugar was consumed every day. At a time like this for America, Isaac Slaughter’s daily schedule consisted of waking up as early as 3:30 or 4:30 in the morning every day, going to the town to gather his “slop”, getting breakfast and getting to work before sunrise. Similarly, another member of the family Uncle Arthur reported that he “dug so hard in the ground for a living” but still did not get as much as 6$ per month. Although some of the old people in Jackson County, Alabama get paid 6$ every month by the pensions through an application process, it is not the case for everyone in the town. Despite the amount of work that Isaac Slaughter and his family did in the 1930s, there still existed a struggle which Isaac Slaughter and many more people went through in Alabama during the Great Depression.

African American Women During the Great Depression

His daughter, Tura also had to work hard on a daily basis to afford the food they put in their house, as well as their shelter. Tura was luckier than most African American women in Alabama during the Great Depression because of qualified skills that made her become a successful nurse. However, when one of their neighbors, a white man, requested from both Isaac Slaughter and Tura Slaughter to do his house work such as washing the dishes or doing his laundry, she was comfortable rejecting him because of her busy work yet they ended up agreeing on a compromise out of courtesy. During the Great Depression, southern African American women were seen as the most underprivileged part of American society and at a time like this because these women faced formidable barriers to labor force participation including the “double disadvantage” due to racism and sexism that existed in the country. Although the women’s movement was active in the 1930s, the problem about unemployment and self-employment among these women were critical especially when the nation was experiencing its worst employment crisis.