Full Text of the Excerpt

MIMI CONWAY:

Did you tell me that when you were working in the printery, when you were heading the printery, that on Saturday after the factory workers got out some black workers would come by and ask for special printing work? They wanted their poetry printed?

ERNEST SEEMAN:

Yes.

MIMI CONWAY:

Can you tell me about that?

ERNEST SEEMAN:

That's interesting. They wanted to have a ballad printed. They were religious Negroes who would compose a hymn about Moses, Joshua, or anybody they happened to think of. They'd got somebody to help them write it out, or they'd dictate to us over the counter. They were very proud of this piece that they'd thought out and written, and then they'd take them on the streets and sell them - a penny apiece, you know,

MIMI CONWAY:

Did they make many copies, or sell many copies of their ballads?

ERNEST SEEMAN:

No, that's a long time ago. In the printing office files in Durham (see, that's still going), Wallace Seeman (who is now head of it) could probably find some old ballad if you go down there. [Interruption] Dr. Boyd is from Duke University, he was interested in history, and he was a pretty good scout to find these old pieces. And he was down there one day and saw one of these ballads the Negroes had had printed, and he wanted copies of them. So we gave him copies for his files at Trinity College.

MIMI CONWAY:

And did you say he printed them up at Duke?

ERNEST SEEMAN:

He took them away to put them in articles, historical articles, Moses and the bullrushes, or whatever it was they were writing about. In this