Getting Word

The Getting Word African American Oral History Project preserves the histories of Monticello’s enslaved families and their descendants.

Through over 100 interviews with participants and countless hours of research, remarkable stories have emerged to form an archive of freedom.

Hear the Stories

“They Were Keeping Time Singing” — Cary Hotchkiss II and Roger McWhorter

“A Very Wonderful Reputation As A Good Man” — Madison Hemings and Shay Banks-Young

“He Had That Type Of Charisma” — J. Calvin Jefferson

“He Was Brought Off Of The Mountain” — Martha Hearns Boston

“You Have A Name To Be Proud Of” — Betty Ann Fitch

“He Trusted Monticello To Great George” — Isaac Granger Jefferson and J. Calvin Jefferson

“You’d Get It From Both Ways” — Patti Jo Medley Harding, Ann Pettiford Medley and George Pettiford

“We Didn’t Say Too Much About It” — Mary Cassells Kearney

“Do You Think That’s Grandfather Trotter?” — Virginia Craft Rose

“We Were Singers” — Johnny James Young

“The Little Church With A Big Heart” — Martha Fletcher, George Southerland and Peter Fossett

“I Was Successful” — James T. Wiley

“All The Men And Boys Would Have A Baseball Game” — Cary Hotchkiss II, Roger McWhorter and Johnny James Young

“They Were Very Proud Of Her” — Stephen De Windt and Pauline Powell Burns

“Their Music Was So Beautiful” — Robert Scott, Yvonne Mitchell Simkins and Marion Elizabeth Carter

“A Great Man Who Did Great Things For Our Family” — Jillian Atkin Sim

“They All Knew The Woodson Tradition” — John Q. T. King

“She Was Frightened All The Time” — Marion Elizabeth Carter and Nancy Colbert Scott