Manybooks.net has released several different formats of the Project Gutenberg edition of the WPA's Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery
by Work Projects Administration. It's a fascinating read.
"My father said that the patrollers would run you and ketch you and whip you if you didn't have a pass, when you was away from the pass.[HW: place?] But they didn't bother you if you had a pass. The patrollers were mean white people who called themselves making the niggers stay home. I think they were hired. They called their selves making the niggers stay home. They went all through the community looking for people, and whipping them when they'd leave home without a pass. They said you wasn't submissive when you left home without a pass. They hounded Lucy to death. She wouldn't let 'em get her, and she wouldn't let 'em get her quarter."
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