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The New York State Museum will show free of charge a preview of the HBO documentary "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives'' on Sunday, February 9 at 3 p.m. in the Clark Auditorium.

"Unchained Memories'' provides first-person accounts of the final generation of African-
Americans born into bondage. The former slaves were interviewed from 1936 to 1938 as part of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers' Project. The film premieres on HBO February 10 at 8 p.m.

In more than 2,000 interviews, former slaves chronicled routines in the fields, slave quarters
and master's house. The film describes parents and children being separated at auction, women
raped by their owners and the punishment inflicted on those who attempted to escape. The ex-slaves
talk about the slaves who enlisted in the Union Army. The film also documents spiritual and family
life and recounts the moment when many learned they had been freed.

Whoopi Goldberg narrates the film and excerpts of interviews are read by Samuel L. Jackson
Jackson, Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey, Alfre Woodard, Roscoe Lee Browne and other actors.
The words are supplemented with archival photographs and slave-era music that piece together
slave life from childhood to death.

Samuel L. Jackson reads the words of Marshal Butler, who recalls white "paddy-rollers''
whipping him with belts when they caught him trying to visit his "gal'' on a plantation a few miles from
from his own. Another slave, Tempie Herndon Durham, described her wedding and marriage to
Exter Durham, a slave from a neighboring plantation whom she was permitted to see Saturdays and
Sundays.

Winfrey reads the words of Jennie Proctor, who said: "None of us was allowed to see
a book or try to learn. They say we get smarter than they was if we learn anything, but we slips around
and gets hold of that Webster's old blue back speller and we hides it 'til way in the night, then we lights
a little pine torch and studies that spellin' book. We learn it, too."

Katie Rowe recalls working in the fields at midday when she heard bells that normally
signaled the end of a workday. A visitor informed she and other puzzled slaves that they were free. "It was
the fourth day of June in 1865 [that] I begins to live,'' she said.

At the end of the Civil War, more than four million slaves were set free. By the Great
Depression, 100,000 were still alive. The Work Projects Administration hired writers to travel the
the country to document the memories. They compiled 17 volumes of narratives, which are housed at the Library of Congress.

The narratives, many of them not included in the HBO film, are also are available at the
New York State Library. For information call (518) 474-5124.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. The State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.