Melissa Barden

Melissa (Lowe) Barden was born on David Lowe's plantation near Summerville, in Chattooga County, Georgia. Asked her age, she said she was "way up yonder some wheres, maybe 80 or 90 years." She took the enslaver's surname and said he was good to her and that she loved him, except for one time she never forgave: when he sold her mother, leaving Melissa and her sister alone. He later gave her sister and several others to his newly married daughter as a wedding present, and her sister was sold and resold.

When freedom came, her mother returned to claim her four children, but Melissa was the only one she could find. Her mother took her to a plantation in Newton County, Georgia, where they worked until they came north. Melissa remembered the dancing and singing after work on the plantation, including "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me."

Her mother died in Ohio, and Melissa married a man named Barden. In old age, completely blind from cataracts but otherwise in good health, she lived with her daughter in a neat bungalow in Youngstown, Ohio. When asked to be photographed, she agreed, "but don't you-all poke fun at me, because I am just as God made me."