George P. Rawick (1929–1990)

Probably the most enduring achievement of his career was his editorship of the 41-volume set of oral histories of former slaves, entitled, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. This collection began publication in 1972. The interviews which this set contains were taken under the auspices of the Works Projects Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. They remained in typescript until Rawick took on the task of supervising their preparation for publication. Volume One of the series consists of Rawick's contribution to the historical literature of American slavery, an important book entitled From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. This book has been translated into 12 languages, and was one of the first books to take American slaves seriously as actors in their own history.