THE WORDS OF SLAVES *** Show at Magnolia Mound Presents the Lives of Slaves in Their Own Voices

By GREG LANGLEY

No one who was a slave in the American South is still living. Yet the words of slaves will be heard again at Magnolia Mound Plantation today.

“The idea is to hear the voices of the ex-slaves talk about what their lives were like without sugar-coating anything,” actor and writer Oneal A. Isaac said.

For the second year, actor and writer Isaac will present his one- man show, In Their Own Voices: American Slaves Tell Their Story. The event begins at 2 p.m. at the plantation with a musical concert by the Southern University Department of Visual and Performing Arts, produced by SU faculty members Charles Lloyd and Myrtle David.

Isaac’s play comprises monologues based on actual interviews with former slaves. The interviews were part of the Slave Narrative Collections compiled by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression. Isaac also found collections of oral histories from ex- slaves at the Louisiana State Archives, Louisiana State Library and in the Archives Collection of the John B. Cade Library at Southern University.

Isaac compiled all the information and picked out the most informative, most typical of the narratives. “I actually read their letters,” he said. “You know when you act out something, people say ‘he’s being artistic – he’s using artistic license.’ When you use their own words, it adds some sort of credibility for me.”

The event is co-sponsored by Friends of Magnolia Mound, a non- profit organization dedicated to helping Magnolia Mound Historic Site, a 16-acre BREC park sandwiched between LSU and downtown Baton Rouge on Nicholson Drive. The six buildings and a garden at Magnolia Mound form a complex dedicated to preserving the lifestyle of the French colonial period in Louisiana. Since 1791, the historic house has stood atop a natural levee or mound near the Mississippi River. The house was the center of a 900-acre plantation once worked by 53 slaves.

Pat Comeaux is chairman of the Friends of Magnolia Mound Board. “About four years ago, we had some board members who came up with the idea of doing some kind of proactive event for Black History Month,” Comeaux said. “I had been in Playmakers for 15 years, and Oneal (Isaac) was one of the actors I worked with all the time. So it was just logical to call him.”

“One of the reasons that the idea even came about is that there really weren’t any Baton Rouge plantations that present the other side of plantation life. It’s always about the Big House. So we thought that ‘somebody needs to do that.’ So we did,” Comeaux said.

Last year was the first year Isaac did the program.

“It’s been a beautiful program,” Comeaux said. And a big success, she added, with about 600 people turning out last year. “It was a complete cross section of the citizens of Baton Rouge. Every race, every economic level, every age was here.”

What the crowd came to see and hear was discussion of a subject that is not often raised even now, more than 140 years after emancipation.

“I still have a very, very rough time with this,” Isaac said. “I don’t think that it’s all that common that we have been able to examine it.

“Nothing’s ever settled,” Isaac said. Black people have been in this country since 1619, and Americans have yet to deal with the legacy of slavery, he said. “Part is guilt and anger. All these emotions – and we’re not used to dealing with emotions.” It has to be discussed, he said.

“It’s going to take generations of talking. And talking. And talking. But that’s what healing is about,” Isaac said.

“If there is one thing that I’d like people to leave with, it would be a better understanding of the complex nature of slavery,” said Carey Coxe, Magnolia Mound’s director. “Everybody is familiar with slavery and what an awful institution it was, but then we have to reconcile the people that we daily tell a story about at these functions, we have to reconcile what we think about them with their participation in slavery. For me, that’s a big issue. Many folks have sort of a one-dimensional or two-dimensional idea about what slavery was, and I think that Oneal’s presentation sort of presents this whole myriad situation that really makes it more clear that it wasn’t one kind of slavery all over the South, that it differed from place to place, environment to environment, agriculturally and from owner to owner, of course.”

Isaac wants to do just that, he said. He wants those slave voices to be heard again, to be remembered.

“It’s almost like a memorial service. Imagine this: You’re at a memorial service and the person whom it’s about has written a letter about his life, and that letter is read at the service,” Isaac said. “That’s what this is.”

The event at Magnolia Mound will go on rain or shine. “We’ve got a backup for rain – we’ll go under the pavilion,” Isaac said. The music and dramatic presentation last about an hour or so, Isaac said, even though he has material for much more. “This thing could go for four hours. You can only take this in small doses. The idea is not to overwhelm people.”

Following Isaac’s presentation, visitors will be free to visit other areas of the site, including:

Historic House Museum: The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums featuring appropriate furnishings for a Federal era Louisiana plantation. The house is periodically dressed c. 1800-1820 for occasions, such as weddings, funerals, Christmas, Lent and summer.

Open-Hearth Kitchen: The reconstructed separate outdoor kitchen is authentically furnished with vintage utensils, such as spider pots, a clock-jack, sugar nippers, waffle iron, olla jar and reflector ovens.

Overseer’s House: Original to the plantation c. 1870 and home to the man who was responsible for the success or failure of the plantation’s various operations.

Quarter House: A double slave cabin c. 1830 has one living quarter furnished appropriately to the period. The adjoining section contains an exhibit of slave life on a Louisiana plantation.

Crop Garden: The crop garden contains indigo, tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane in order to depict all of Magnolia Mound’s cash crops throughout its history.

Pigeonnier: A small structure c.1825, to house squab and various game birds, featuring a new collection of live pigeons.

Carriage House: A collection of vintage tools, as well as a weaver’s workshop that depicts plantation chores c.1800-1820.

Isaac will also give his dramatic presentation for area schoolchildren at the Old State Capitol on three dates: Tuesday, Feb. 13, Wednesday, Feb. 14, and Thursday, Feb. 15. He will perform in the House Chambers. Comeaux said that although the event at the Old State Capitol is also free, all three performances have been booked in advance and no more seats are available.

The Friends of Magnolia Mound is a member organization of the Community Fund for the Arts. Magnolia Mound Plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is accredited by the American Association of Museums. Participants and supporters of the Black History Month Project at Magnolia Mound in addition to BREC and the Old State Capitol are the Southern University Department of Visual and Performing Arts, the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, Franklin Press, Thomasgraphics and Kleinpeter Music.

In Their Own Voices: American Slaves Tell Their Story

WHAT: A music and dramatic presentation

WHERE: BREC’s Magnolia Mound Plantation, 2161 Nicholson Drive, on the porch of the slave house.

WHEN: 2 p.m today, Feb. 11

ADMISSION: Free

SPONSORED BY: Friends of Magnolia Mound, BREC and Louisiana’s Old State Capitol

INFORMATION: (225) 343-4955

ON THE INTERNET: http://www.brec.org/

(c) 2007 Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.