Slave Narrative From Lithonia: A Reflection Between America’s Two Independence Days

Between Juneteenth and the nation’s 250th Independence Day celebration, our resident Hood Historian Brigette Jones reflects on the long march toward freedom for Black people in this country through a slave narrative from Lithonia.

Juneteenth 2026 marked the 161^st anniversary of the emancipation of the last enslaved of Texas being notified of their freedom. And this Fourth of July will mark America’s 250^th birthday. That leaves 89 years of legalized segregation and disenfranchisement for Black people in this heralded nation where “all men are created equal,” as stated in our Declaration of Independence. Our goal as the Alliance is to meet the community at the intersection of nature, culture, and history, and the first step toward doing that is to tell authentic stories. These stories may not always be comfortable or paint the best picture of some of America’s most pedestaled heroes, but they are true. And more importantly, they’re an indisputable reflection of who America has been, and who she currently is because of her past. To this point, I’d like to take the time to revisit the narrative of a formerly enslaved person born and sold right here in Lithonia at the heart of the Heritage Area because these stories are America, too.

From 1936 until 1938, the Works’ Progress Administration (WPA) went throughout the southern United States to interview more than 2,300 formerly enslaved Americans to create a record of their experiences. One of these 1938 interviews is of 84-year-old Harriet Hill, who was at the time living in Forrest City, Arkansas. This narrative not only includes her price of sale as a child, but also the names of her former enslavers: Mr. Jake Chupp, whose family has a long and accomplished history in Lithonia (there’s even a street named for them off of Farrington Road in Stonecrest), and the Marbut family, who have several streets and subdivisions named after them throughout Lithonia.

In all my research, this is the only slave narrative I’ve encountered from Lithonia. At the beginning, Hill states that she was born at the base of “Little Rock Mountain.” This is a variation of “Little Stone Mountain,” which could refer to Arabia, Panola, or even Pine Mountain, called such in this map from 1900. Whichever mountain it refers to, we know that Hill was born and grew up enslaved in what is now the Heritage Area.

Hill’s accounts of her life post-emancipation are sadly just as grim as her time enslaved due to the often unfair, and downright unjust treatment by white employers and Jim Crow segregation. Unfortunately, her story is all too common in the post-emancipated South, and it is these individuals and the circumstances they encountered that lay the foundations for many Black American families, thus contributing to the unequal social, economic, educational, and political standing seen in modern times that impact the upward trajectory of many Black Americans.

Ultimately, the history of America is long, turbulent, and riddled with moments of both joy and tragedy. And, while we may only want to remember the highlight reel, growth does not favor comfort; thus, we continue to act in the spirit of Sankofa, always moving forward but not being afraid to look back. On this Fourth of July, we at the Alliance encourage and implore you to look back, not with anger but with curiosity and the desire to leave this nation better than you found it.

In this uneasy gap between our nation’s two vastly different independence days, please reflect on Harriet Hill’s narrative reproduced below with minimal stylistic changes. Please note, the interview is written in dialect, which was the style of the time, to record oral histories as they were spoken. 

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Harriett Hill
Age: 84, Forrest City, Arkansas

I was born in Lithonia, Georgia, at the foot of Little Rock Mountain, close to Stone Mountain, Georgia, I been sold in my life twice to my knowing, I was sold away from my dear old mammy at three years old but I can remember it. I remembers it! It lack selling a calf from the cow. Exactly, but we are human beings and ought to be better than do sich. I was too little to remember my price. I was sold to be a nursemaid. They bought me and took me on away that time. The next time they put me up in a wagon and auctioned me off. That time I didn’t sell. John George (white man) was in the war; he wanted some money to hire a substitute to take his place fightin’. So he have Jim George do the sellin’. They was brothers. They talked ‘fore me some bit ‘fore they took me off. They wouldn’t take me to Atlanta cause they said some of the people there said they wouldn’t give much price – the Negroes soon be set free. Some folks in Atlanta was Yankees and wouldn’t buy slaves. They ‘eluded the best market to sell me off would be ten or twelve miles from home. I reckon it was to Augusta, Georgia. They couldn’t sell me and start on back home. A man come up to our wagon and say he’d split the difference. They made the trade. I sold on that spot for $1400. I was nine or ten years old. I remembers it. Course I do! I never could forget it. Now mind you, that was durin’ the war.

Master Jake Chup [Chupp] owned mammy and me too. He sold me to John George. Jim George sold me to Sam Broadnax. When freedom come on that was my home. Freedom come in the spring. He got some of the slaves to stay to finish up the crops for 1/10 at Christmas. When they got through dividin’ up they said they goin’ to keep me for a bounty. I been talkin’ to Kitty – all I remembers her name Kitty. She been down there at the stream washin’. Some children come told me Kitty say come on. She hung out the clothes. I lit out over the fence and through the field with Kitty and went to Conniars [Conyers]. She left me at the railroad track and went on down the road by myself to Lithonia. I walked all night. I met my brother not long after Kitty left me. He was on a wagon. He knowed me and took me up with him to Mr. Jake Chup’s Jr. He was the young man. Then, Chups fed me till he come back and took me to mammy. Master Chups sold her to Dr. Reygans [Reagin], hadn’t seen her since I was three years old. She knowed me. My brother knowed me soon as ever he saw me. I might a not knowed them in a gatherin’ but I hadn’t forgot them. They hear back and forth where I be, but they never could get to see me. I lived with my folks till I married.

The first man I lived with ten years. The next one I lived with fifty years and some days over. He died. They both died. The man I married was a preacher. We farmed long with his preachin’. We paid $500.00 for forty acres of this bottom land. Cleared it out. I broke myself plum down and it got mortgaged. The Planters Bank at Forrest City took it over. I ain’t had nothin’ since. I ain’t got no home. I ain’t had nothin’ since then. My husband died two years ago and I has a hard time.

My folks was livin’ in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin’. We sure was scared of ‘em. Mighty nigh to death. When freedom come on the niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers. Sometimes a white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be havin’ preachin’, here come the Ku Klux and run ‘em clear out. If they hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped several. They sure had to be mighty particular what they said in the preachin’. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn’t no use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode the country every night for I don’t know how long and that all niggers talked bout.

My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.

My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They didn’t allow white men to take ‘em off so a white man come and stay round shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to Memphis, then we got on a big boat. No, ma’am, we didn’t come on no freight train. We got off at White Hall Landing. They got off all long the river. We worked on wages out here. Pa wanted to go to Mississippi. We went and made eighteen bales cotton and got cheated out of all we made. We never got a cent. The man cheated us was Mr. Harris close to Trotter’s Landing.

Mr. Anderson, the poor white man we worked for, jumped in the river and drowned his self. The turns (returns) didn’t come in for the first batch we sold at all, then when the turns come they said we done took it up – owed it all. We knowed we hadn’t took it up but couldn’t get nothin’. We come back to Arkansas.

I been to Detroit, short time, and been way, but I comes back.

I forgot to say this: My mammy was born in South Carolina. Marbuts owned her and sold her. My pa lived to be 114 or 115 years old. He died in Arkansas. She did too.

Of course I don’t vote! Women ain’t got no business runnin’ the government!

I nursed, worked in the field. When I was a slave they raised a little cotton in Georgia but mostly corn. I chopped cotton and thinned out corn.

The present times is too fast. Somethin’ goin’ to happen. The present generation too fast. Folks racin’. Ridin’ in cars too fast. They ain’t kind no more.

I rent a house where I can and I get $10.00 from the government. That all the support I got. I farmed in the field mighty hard and lost all we had.

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If you found this narrative informative, then click here to download a PDF of the complete Slave Narratives as recorded by the WPA form 1936-38. Also find more local history in our new photographic history Images of America: Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area.