Strategies for Survival"conveys the experience of bondage through the words of formerslaves themselves. The interviews -- conducted in Virginia in 1937 by WPAinterviewers -- are considered among the most valuable of the WPA interviews becausein Virginia the interviewers were almost all African Americans; thus theinterviewees almost certainly spoke more frankly than they would otherwise havedone. Dusinberre uses the interviews to assess the strategies by which slaves soughtto survive, despite the severe constrictions bondage imposed upon their lives.Religion and escape were common means of coping with the indignity of familydisruption, contempt, and the harsh realities of slavery. However, while Dusinberrerecognizes the creativity and variety of slaves' responses to oppression, heacknowledges the dispiriting realities of the limits of slave resistance andagency.