George Rawick

 

A very good friend, George Rawick, edited the slave narratives – over 40 volumes. Time passes so fast and things done in the past are forgotten. George and I, as well as several others, talked on and on about slavery and how it was presented in this country. Historians of the past wrote from the perspective of the masters, but after the slave narratives were published that all changed, as the slave's voices were then heard. From his monumental work on the slave narratives, George wrote The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography – From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Eugene Genovese received much greater acclaim for his work Role Jordan Role: The World The Slaves Made, for which he received the Bancroft Prize. His earlier work was The World the Slaveholders Made in which he adhered to the traditional view of slavery. It was Rawick's work on the slave narratives that made Genevese's Role Jordon Role possible. Although Genevise acknowledged his debt to George in small print, it should have been in LARGE print – very LARGE print. George died in 1990 in a St. Louis nursing home. He could neither walk nor talk, but lay in bed trying to write a history of labor by moving letters that hung above his bed with a pointer. A woman graduate student who had studied with George at The University of Missouri - St. Louis, came everyday and transcribed what he had written. She also was able to make out what he said, in some minimal way, but I could never understand him. I tried to visit and read to him every other week or so, but I am sorry to say I was not as constant as I would have liked.