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Description
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Hitchhiking north from the slave camps in Immokalee, I got one of my most important rides as a vagabond. A black social worker, who picked me up and saw my pictures, asked me if I would like to meet America’s last surviving slave and took me to Charles Smith, seen here, and who claimed to be 134 years old. His moving story, which I caught on tape just before his death, goes back to how he was caught in Africa, lured onto a slave ship and sold at auction in New Orleans to a white farmer.
He was in American papers and in Library of Congress described as America’s oldest citizen and only surviving slave, but long after his death there are some indications that he probably adopted his father’s story as his own.
Bartow, Fl – April 10th 1974
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