Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives
by
Work Projects Administration
Part 1 out of 6
Produced by Andrea Ball and PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced
from images provided by the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division.
[TR: ***] = Transcriber Note
[HW: ***] = Handwritten Note
SLAVE NARRATIVES
A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves
TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WASHINGTON 1941
VOLUME II
ARKANSAS NARRATIVES
PART 6
Prepared by
the Federal Writers' Project of
the Works Progress Administration
for the State of Arkansas
INFORMANTS
Quinn, Doc
Ralls, Henrietta
Rankins, Diana
Rassberry, Senia
Reaves, Clay
Reece, Jane
Reed, Frank
Reeves, James
Rhone, Shepherd
Richard, Dora
Ricks, Jim
Rigger, Charlie
Rigley, Ida
Ritchie, Milton
Rivers, Alice
Roberts, Rev. J.
Robertson (Robinson?), George
Robinson, Augustus
Robinson, Malindy
Robinson, Tom
Rogers, Isom
Rogers, Oscar James
Rogers, Will Ann
Rooks, William Henry
Ross, Amanda
Ross, Cat
Ross, Mattie
Rowland, Laura
Rucker, Landy
Ruffin, Martha
Ruffin, Thomas
Rumple, Casper
Russell, Henry
Rye, Katie
Samuels, Bob
Sanderson, Emma
Scott, Mary
Scott, Mollie Hardy
Scott, Sam
Scroggins, Cora
Sexton, Sarah
Shaver, Roberta
Shaw, Mary
Shaw, Violet
Shelton, Frederick
Shelton, Laura
Shores, Mahalia
Simmons, Rosa
Sims, Fannie
Sims, Jerry
Sims, Victoria
Sims, Virginia
Singfield, Senya
Sloan, Peggy
Smallwood, Arzella
Smiley, Sarah
Smith, Andrew
Smith, Caroline
Smith, Caroline
Smith, Edmond
Smith, Emma Hulett
Smith, Ervin E.
Smith, Frances
Smith, Henrietta Evelina
Smith, Henry
Smith, J.L.
Smith, John H.
Snow, Charlie and Maggie
Solomon, Robert
Spikes, James
Stanford, Kittie
Stanhouse, Tom
Starnes, Isom
Steel, Hezekiah (Ky)
Stenhouse, Maggie
Stephens, Charlotte E.
Stevens, William J.
Stewart, Minnie Johnson
Stiggers, Liza
Stith, James Henry
Stout, Caroline
Street, Felix
Tabon, Mary
Tanner, Liza Moore
Tatum, Fannie
Taylor, Anthony
Taylor, Lula
Taylor, Millie
Taylor, Sarah
Taylor, Warren
Teague, Sneed
Teel, Mary
Thermon, Wade
Thomas, Dicey
Thomas, Mandy
Thomas, Omelia
Thomas, Omelia
Thomas, Tanner
Thomas, Wester
Thompson, Annie [TR: Corrected from "Thomas"]
Thompson, Ellen Briggs
Thompson, Hattie
Thompson, Mamie
Thompson, Mike
Thornton, Laura
Tidwell, Emma (Bama?)
Tillman, Joe
Tims, J.T.
Travis, Hannah
Trotter, Mark C.
Tubbs, James
Tucker, Mandy
Turner, Emma
Turner, Henry
Tuttle, Seabe
Texarkana District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Cecil Copeland
Subject: Social Customs--Reminiscences of an Ex-Slave
Subject: Foods
This Information given by: Doc Quinn
Place of Residence: 1217 Ash Street, Texarkana, Arkansas
Occupation: None [TR: also reported as Ex-slave.]
Age: 93 [TR: also reported as 94.]
[TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
Several months ago, I called at 1217 Ash Street, Texarkana, Arkansas
where I had been informed a voluble old negro lived. An aged,
gray-haired, negro woman came to the door and informed me her father was
in the wood shed at the back of the house. Going around to the wood shed
I found him busily engaged in storing his winter supply of wood. When I
made known my mission he readily agreed to answer all my questions as
best he could. Seating himself on a block of wood, he told this almost
incredible story, along with lengthy discourses on politics, religion
and other current events:
"I wuz born March 15, 1843, in Monroe County, Mississippi, near
Aberdeen, Mah Mahster wuz Colonel Ogburn, one ob de bigges' planters in
de state of Mississippi. Manys de time he raised so much cotton dat dem
big steamers just couldnt carry it all down to N'Awlins in one year.
But den along came de Civil War an' we didn't raise nothin' fo' several
years. Why? Becase most uf us jined the Confederate Army in Colonel
Ogburn's regiment as servants and bodyguards. An' let me tell yo'
somethin', whitefolks. Dere never wuz a war like dis war. Why I 'member
dat after de battle of Corinth, Miss., a five acre field was so thickly
covered wid de dead and wounded dat yo' couldn't touch de ground in
walkin' across it. And de onliest way to bury dem wuz to cut a deep
furrow wid a plow, lay de soldiers head to head, an' plow de dirt back
on dem."
"About a year after de war started de Mahster got one ob dese A.W.O.L.'s
frum de Army so we could come to Miller County, where he bought de place
on Red River now known as de Adams Farm.
"When we fust came here dis place, as well as de rest ob de Valley, wuz
just a big canebrake--nothin' lived in dere but bears, wolves, and
varmints. Why de Mahster would habe to round up de livestock each
afternoon, put dem in pens, and den put out guards all night to keep de
wolves and bears frum gettin' em. De folks didn't go gallivatin' round
nights like dey do now or de varmints would get them. But den we didn't
stay here but a few months until de Mahster's A.W.O.L. wuz up, so we had
to go back and jine de army. We fought in Mississippi Alabama, Georgia,
and South Carolina."
"When de war ended de Mahster moved us to Miller County, but not on de
Adams farm. For de man whut used to own de farm said Uncle Sam hadn't
made any such money as wuz paid him for de farm, so he wanted his farm
back. Dat Confederate money wuzn't worth de paper it wuz printed on, so
de Mahster had to gib him back de farm. Poor Massa Ogburn--he didn't
live long after dat. He and his wife are buried side by side in Rondo
Cemetery."
"Not long after de negroes wuz freed, I took 86 ob dem to de votin'
place at Homan and voted 'em all straight Democratic. On my way back
home dat evenin' five negroes jumped frum de bushes and stopped me.
Dey 'splained dat I wuz too 'fluential wid de negroes and proceeded to
string me up by de neck. I hollers as loud as I could, and Roy Nash and
Hugh Burton, de election officers, just happen to be comin' down de road
and hear me yell. Dey ran off de niggers and cut me down, but by dat
time I had passed out. It wuz several weeks befo' I got well, and I can
still feel dat rope 'round my neck. Iffen dey had known how to tie a
hangmans knot I wouldn't be here to tell you about it."
"It wuzn't long after dis dat I jined Colonel' Baker's Gang for
'tection. 'Colonel' Baker wuz a great and brave man and did mo' fo de
white folks of dis country den any other man. Why iffen it hadn't been
fo' him de white folks couldn't hab lived in dis country, de negroes wuz
so mean. Dey wuz so mean dat dey tied heavy plow shoes aroun' de necks
ob two little white boys and threw dem in de lake. Yes suh. I wuz dere."
"And another time I wuz wid a bunch of niggers when dey wuz plannin' on
killin a white man who wuz a friend ob mine. As soon as I could I slips
away and tips him off. When I got back one ob dem niggers looks at me
suspicious like and asks, "where yo been, nigger?" I wuz shakin' like a
leaf in a storm, but I says: "I ain't been nowhere--just went home to
get some cartridges to help kill dis white man."
"Not long after I jined Colonel Baker's Gang, we wuz comin' frum Fulton
to Clipper through de Red River bottoms. De river wuz overflowin' an' as
we wuz crossin' a deep, swift slough, Colonel Baker and his horse got
tangled up in some grape vines. Colonel Baker yelled, and I turned my
mule around and cut all de grape vine loose wid my Bowie knife. Dere
ain't nothin' like a mule for swimmin'. Dey can swim circles aroun' any
horse. As long as he lived, Colonel Baker was always grateful to me fo'
savin' his life."
"De Colonel hated de sight ob mean niggers. We would ride up to a negro
settlement, and tell de niggers we wuz organizing a colored militia to
catch Cullen Baker and his gang. Most ob de negroes would join, but some
ob dem had to be encouraged by Colonel Baker's big gun. De recruits
would be lined up in an open field fo' drilling. And dey sho wuz
drilled. Colonel Baker and his men would shoot them by the score. Dey
killed 53 at Homan, Arkansas, 86 at Rocky Comfort, (Foreman) Arkansas, 6
near Ogden, Arkansas, 6 on de Temple place, 62 at Jefferson, Texas, 100
in North Louisiana, 73 at Marshall, Texas, and several others."
"All of de big planters wuz friendly to Cullen Baker. I have carried
supplies many times frum de big plantations--Hervey, Glass, and
others--to Cullen Baker. De Colonel always carried a big double-barrel
shotgun. It must have been de biggest shotgun in de world, not less den
a number eight size. He whipped 16 soldiers at Old Boston wid dis gun
one time."
"I saw Colonel Baker killed. We had just arrived at his father-in-law's
house and I wuz in the horse lot, about 50 yards from de house, when Joe
Davis. Thomas Orr and some more men rode up."
"De Colonel wuz standin' by de chimney an did not see dem come aroun' de
house. Dey killed him befo' he knew dey wuz aroun'. One ob de men asked
Mr. Foster, "Where at dat d--n nigger?" I ducked down and crawled in
under de rail fence and ran--I didn't stop 'til I wuz deep in the
Sulphur River bottoms. Every minute my heart seemed like it wuz goin'
to jump right out uv my mouth. I wuz the worst scared nigger that ever
lived."
"I have lived many years since dat time. De times and ways of livin'
have changed. I 'member killing deer where the Texarkana National Bank
stands, way befo' Texarkana wuz even thought of. This place wuz one of
my favorite deer stands. Nix Creek used to be just full ob fish. What
used to be the best fishing hole aroun' here is now covered by the
Methodist Church (Negro), in East Texarkana. Dr. Weetten had a big
fine home out where Springlake Park is. He wuz killed when thrown by a
buckin' horse. All of de young people I knew den have been dead many
years."
Foods
The question of eating special food on a particular day immediately
brings in mind Thanksgiving Day, when turkey becomes the universal dish.
Perhaps no other day in the year can be so designated, except among a
few religious orders when the eating of meat is strictly prohibited on
certain days.
The belief that negroes are particularly addicted to eating pork is well
founded, as witness the sales of pork to colored people in most any meat
market. But who could imagine that cotton-seed was once the universal
food eaten in this vicinity by the colored people? That, according to
Doc Quinn, a former slave, and self-styled exmember of Cullen Baker's
Gang, was the custom before and shortly after the Civil War.
The cotton-seed would be dumped into a hugh pot, and boiled for several
hours, the seed gradually rising to the top. The seed would then be
dipped off with a ladle. The next and final step would be to pour
corn-meal into the thick liquid, after which it was ready to be eaten.
Cotton-seed, it must be remembered, had little value at that time,
except as livestock feed.
"Yes suh, Cap'n," the old negro went on to explain. "I has never eaten
anything whut tasted any better, or whut would stick to your ribs like
cotton-seed, and corn-meal cake. Rich? Why dey's nuthin dat is more
nutritious. You never saw a healthier or finer lookin' bunch of negroes
dan wuz on Colonel Harvey's place.
"I 'member one time tho' when he changed us off cotton-seed, but we
didn't stay changed fo' long. No suh. Of all de grumblin' dem niggers
did, becase dey insides had got so used to dat cotton-seed and corn-meal
dey wouldn't be satisfied wid nothing else."
"One mornin' when about forty of us niggers had reported sick, de
Mahster came down to de qua'ters. 'Whut ailin' ye' lazy neggers?' he
asked. Dem niggers los' about fifty pounds of weight apiece, and didn'
feel like doin' anything. 'Mahster,' I say. 'Iffen you'll have de wimmen
folks make us a pot full of dat cotton-seed and corn-meal, we'll be
ready to go to work.' And as long as I work fo' Colonel Harvey, one uv
de bes' men whut ever lived, we always had cotton-seed and corn-meal to
eat."
Texarkana District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Mrs. W.M. Ball
Subject: Anecdotes of an Aged Ex-Slave.
Subject: Superstitious Beliefs Among Negroes. (Negro lore)
Story:--Information:
Information given by: Doc Quinn
Place of Residence: 12th & Ash Sts., Texarkana, Ark.
Occupation: None (Ex-Slave)
Age: 92
[TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
"Mah young marster wuz Joe Ogburn. Me and him growed up togedder an' I
wuz his body guard durin' de wahr. Many's de day I'ze watched de smoke
ob battle clear away an' wait fo' de return ob mah marster. All de time
I felt we wuz born to win dat wahr, but God knowed bes' an' you know de
result.
"Three years ago I went to Little Rook wid Mr. Fisher. Lac' all folks
whut goes to dis city, we wend our way to de Capitol to see de Governor.
Gov. Futtrell sittin' bac' in his great fine office, saw me and jined me
in conversation. De fus' question he axed me wuz 'whut party does yo'
'filiate wif?' I sez, 'de Democrat--de party whut's a frien' to de
nigger.' De Governor axed me how does I lac' dis life? I sez 'very well,
tho' things has changed since slavery days. Those wuz good ole days for
de black man; didn't hafter worry about nuthin'. Now, I sho' does mah
share ob worryin'. I worries from one meal to de odder, I worries about
whure I'ze gwine get some mo' clothes when dese wears out?'
"I tole de Governor mah 'sperience wif de Republican Party durin' de
wahr. I been hung fo' times in mah life an' one ob de times by de
Republicans. Long time ago, Mr. Roy Nash an' Mr. Hugh Sutton wuz a
settin' ovah de ballot box on 'lection day, when I voted 80 Democrats.
Yas, suh; I jus' marches 'em in an' tells 'em how to cas' dey vote. Dat
night, on mah way home frum de votin', goin' down de lonely road, I wuz
stopped an' strung up to a tree by de neck. Dey 'splained dat I wuz too
'fluential wid de niggers. When I wuz hangin' dere I did some manful
howlin'. Dat howlin' sho brought de white folks. When dey see mah
distres' dey 'leased de rope an' I wuz saved. Dat is when I 'pealed to
Col. Baker for 'tection. He wuz mah frien' as long as he lib, and he wuz
a good frien' ob de South 'cause he saved lots ob white folks frum de
wrath ob de mean niggers."
(Note: The Col. Baker referred to was Cullen Baker, the leader of a
ruthless gang of bushwhackers that operated in this section shortly
after the Civil War.)
Doc Quinn tells a "ghost story" connected with the old church at Rondo,
built in 1861.
"De Masonic Hall wuz built up ovah dis buildin' an' ever month dey had
dey meetin'. One night, when dey was 'sembled, two men wuz kilt. Dat
sho' did scatter dat lot ob Masons and frum dat time on de spirits ob
dese men roamed dis chu'ch. Sometime in de dead ob night, dat bell wud
ring loud an' clear, wakin' all de folks. Down dey wud come, clos' like,
to de chu'ch,--but scared to go closer. Mr. Bill Crabtree, a rich man
an' a man whut wuz scared too, offered anybody $100.00 to go inside dat
chu'ch an' stay one hour. Didn't nobody need dat $100.00 dat bad!"
The old negro tells the following grave yard story:
"One dark, drizzly night, de niggers wuz out in de woods shootin' craps.
I didn't hab no money to jine in de game. One nigger say, "Doc, effen
you go down to de cemetey' an' bring bac' one ob dem 'foot boa'ds' frum
one ob dem graves, we'll gib yo' a dollar." I ambles off to de cemete'y,
'cause I really needed dat money. I goes inside, walks careful like, not
wantin' to distu'b nuthin', an' finally de grave stone leapt up in front
ob me. I retches down to pick up de foot boa'd, an' lo! de black cats
wuz habin' a meetin' ovah dat grave an' dey objected to mah intrudin',
but I didn't pay 'em no mind; jus' fetched dat boa'd bac' to dem
niggers, an'--bless de Lawd,--dey gib me two dollars!"
Superstitious Beliefs Among Negroes
Some aged Negroes believe that many of the superstitious ideas that are
practiced by their race today had their origin in Africa. A practice
that was quite common in ante bellum days was for each member of the
family to extract all of their teeth, in the belief that in doing so the
family would never disagree. Fortunately, this and similar practices of
self mutilation have about become extinct.
An old custom practiced to prevent the separation of a husband and wife
was to wrap a rabbit's forefoot, a piece of loadstone, and 9 hairs from
the top of the head in red flannel, and bury it under the front door
steps.
As a preventitive against being tricked or hoo-dooed, punch a hole
through a dime, insert a string through the hole, and tie it around the
left ankle.
To carry an axe or hoe into the house means bad luck. An itching nose
indicates some one is coming to see you, while an itching eye indicates
you will cry.
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Henrietta Ralls
1711 Fluker St.
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 88
"Yes ma'am, I was here in slavery times. I was born in Mississippi, Lee
County, March 10, 1850. Come to Arkansas when I was ten years old. Had
to walk. My old master was Henry Ralls. Sometimes we jump up in the
wagon and he'd whip us out.
"My old mistes name was Drunetta. She was good to us. We called her Miss
Netta. Old master was mean. He'd whip us. One day he come along and
picked up sand and throwed it in my eyes. He was a mean old devil. He
thought I was scared of him. Cose I was. That was before the war.
"I recollect when the Yankees come. I knowed they was a'ridin'. White
folks made me hide things. I hid a barrel of wool once--put meal on
top. They'd a'took it ever bit if they could have found it. They wanted
chickens and milk. They'd take things they wanted--they would that.
Would a'taken ever bit of our wool if they could have found it.
"They wouldn't talk to old mistes--just talk to me and ask where things
was. She didn't notice them and they didn't notice her.
"I reckon the Lord intended for the Yankees to free the people. They was
fightin' to free the people.
"I hear em say war is still goin' on in the world.
"The owners was tryin' to hide the colored people. Our white folks took
some of us clear out in Texas to keep the Yankees from gettin' em. Miss
Liza was Miss Netta's daughter and she was mean as her old daddy. She
said, 'Oh, yes, you little devils, you thought you was goin' to be free!
She had a good brother though. He wanted to swap a girl for me so I
could be back here with my mammy, but Miss Liza wouldn't turn me loose.
No sir, she wouldn't.
"After freedom I hired out--cooked, milked cows and washed and ironed.
"I went back to Mississippi and stayed with my father. Old Henry Ralls
sold my father fore we come to Arkansas.
"I never been married. I could have married, but I didn't. I don't know
hardly why.
"I been makin' my own livin' pretty much since I left my father.
"Biggest majority of younger generation looks like they tryin' to get
a education and tryin' to make a livin' with their brain without usin'
their hands. But I'd rather use my hands--cose I would.
"I went to school some after the war, but I had to pay for it.
"I been disabled bout five or six years. Got to have somethin' to take
us away, I guess."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Diana Rankins, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 66
"I was born at Arlington, Tennessee but when I was a chile the depot was
called With. My parents' name Sarah and Solomon Green. There was seven
girls and one boy of us. My sister died last year had two children old
as I was. I was the youngest chile. Folks mated younger than they do now
and seem like they had better times when there was a big family.
"Adam Turnover in Charleston, South Carolina owned my papa. When he died
they sold him. He was one year and six months old when he was sold.
"I think S.C. Bachelor, around Brownsville, Tennessee, owned mama first.
She said they put her upon the block and sold her and her mother was
crying. The man after he sold her ask her if she didn't want him to sell
her. She said she didn't care but said she knowed she was afraid to say
she cared cause she was crying. She never seen her mama no more. She was
carried off on a horse. She was a little girl then. General Hayes bought
her and he bought papa too. They played together. General Hayes made the
little boys run races so he could see who could run the fastest.
"Papa said they picked him up and carried him off. He said they pressed
him into the breastworks of the war. He didn't want to go to war. Mr.
Hayes kept him hid out but they stole him and took him to fight. He come
home. He belong to Jack Hayes, General Hayes' son. They called him
Mr. Jack or Mr. Hayes when freedom come. Mr. Jack sent him to Como,
Mississippi to work and to Duncan, Arkansas to work his land. I was
fifteen years old when we come to Arkansas. Mr. Walker Hayes that was
president of the Commercial Appeal over at Memphis lost his land. We
been from place to place over Arkansas since then. Mr. Walker was
General Hayes' grandson. We worked field hands till then, we do anything
since. I nursed some for Mr. Charles Williams in Memphis. I have done
house work. I got two children. My son got one leg off. I live with him.
This little gran'boy is the most pleasure to us all.
"The Ku Klux never did interfere with us. They never come to our house.
I have seen them.
"When papa come from war it was all over. We knowed it was freedom.
Everybody was in a stir and talking and going somewhere. He had got
his fill of freedom in the war. He said turn us all out to freeze and
starve. He stayed with the Hayes till he died and mama died and all of
us scattered out when Mr. Walker Hayes lost his land.
"Ladies used to be too fine to be voting. I'm too old now. My men-folks
said they voted. They come home and say how they voted all I know about
voting.
"Walker Avenue in Memphis is named for Mr. Walker Hayes and Macremore
was named for him or by him one.
"We never was give a thing at freedom but papa was buying a place from
his master and got in debt and sold it. I don't own a home.
"I have high blood pressure and the Welfare gives me $8 a month. I'm not
able to work. When you been used to a good plenty it is mighty bad to
get mighty near helpless."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Senia Rassberry
810 Catalpa Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 84
"Yes'm, I know what I hear em say. Well, in slavery times I helped make
the soldiers' clothes.
"I was born on the old Jack Hall place on the Arkansas River in
Jefferson County.
"I know I was 'leven years old when peace declared. I reckon I can
member fore the War started. I know I was bastin' them coats and pants.
"My old master's name was Jack Hall and old mistress' name was
Priscilla. Oh, yes'm, they was good to me--just as good to me as they
could be. But ever' once in awhile they'd call me and say, 'Senia.' I'd
say, 'What you want?' They say, 'Wasn't you out there doin' so and so?'
I'd say, 'No.' They say, 'Now, you're tellin' a lie' and they'd whip me.
"I was the house girl, me and my sister. My mammy was the cook.
"Old master had two plantations. Sometimes he had a overseer and
sometimes he didn't.
"Oh, they had plenty to eat, hog meat and cracklin' bread. Yes ma'am. I
loved that, I reckon. I et so much of it then I don't hardly ever want
it now. They had so much to eat. Blackberry cobbler? Oh Lawd.
"How many brothers and sisters? Me? My dear, I don't know how many I had
but I heard my mother say that all the chillun she did have, that she
had 'leven chillun.
"Our white folks took us to Texas durin' of the War. I think my old
master said we stayed there three years. My mother died there with a
congestive chill.
"We come back here to Arkansas after freedom and I think my father
worked for Jack Hall three or four years. He wouldn't let him leave. He
raised my father and thought so much of him. He worked on the shares.
"After freedom I went to school. I learnt to read and write but I
just wouldn't _do_ it. I learnt the other chillun though. I did
_that_. I was into ever'thing. I learnt them that what I could do.
Blue Back? Them's the very ones I studied.
"In slavery times I had to rise as early as I could. Old master would
give me any little thing around the house that I wanted. They said he
was too old to go to war. Some of the hands run off but I didn't know
where they went to.
"Some of the people was better off slaves than they was free. I don't
study bout things now but sometimes seems like all them things comes
before me.
"I used to hear em talkin' bout old Jeff Davis. I didn't know what they
was talkin' bout but I heered em.
"I was sixteen when I married and I had eleven chillun. All dead but
four.
"Yes'm, I been treated good all my life by white and black. All of em
loved me seemed like.
"I been livin' in Arkansas all my life. I never have worked in the
field. I always worked in the house. I always was a seamstress--made
pants for the men on the place.
"After I come here to Pine Bluff I worked for the white folks. Used to
cook and wash and iron. Done a lot of work. I _did_ that.
"I been blind 'leven years but I thank the Lord I been here that long.
Glory to Jesus! Oh, Lord have mercy! Glory, glory, glory to Jesus!"
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Clay Reaves, (light mulatto, large man)
Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 80
"I will be eighty years old my next birthday. It will be July 6th.
Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn't tell you about him. He
stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and
left. He didn't live with mother ever again. I never did hear no reason.
He went on Joe Night's farm. He left me and a sister older but there was
one dead between us. Mother raised us. She stayed on with the Reaves two
years after he left. The last year she was there she hired to them. The
only thing she ever done before freedom was cook and weave. She had her
loom in the kitchen. It was a great big kitchen built off from the house
and a portico joined it to the house. I used to lay up under her loom.
It was warm there in winter time. I was the baby. I heard mother say
some things I remember well.
"She said she was never sold. She said the Reaves said her children need
never worry, they would never be sold. We was Reaves from back yonder.
Mother's grandfather was a white man. She was a Reaves and her children
are mostly Reaves. She was light. Father was about, might be a little
darker than I am (mulatto). At times she worked in the field, but in
rush time. She wove all the clothes on the place. She worked at the loom
and I lay up under there all day long. Mother had three girls and five
boys.
"Mr. Reaves, we called him master, had two boys in the army. He was a
real old man. He may have had more than two but I know there was two
gone off. The white folks lived in sight of the quarters. Their house
was a big house and painted white. I've been in there. I never seen no
grand parents of mine that I was allowed to claim kin with.
"When I got up some size I was allowed to go see father. I went over to
see him sometimes. After freedom he went to where his brothers lived.
They wanted him to change his name from Reaves to Cox and he did. He
changed it from James Reaves to James Cox. But I couldn't tell you if
at one time they belong to Cox in Kentucky or if they belong to Cox in
Tennessee or if they took on a name they liked.
"I kept my name Reaves. I am a Reaves from start to finish. I was raised
by mother and she was a Reaves. Her name was Olive Reaves. Her old
mistress' name was Charlotte Reaves, old master was Edmond Reaves. Now
the boys I come to know was John, Bob; girls, Mary and Jane. There was
older children. Mother was a sensible, obedient woman. Nobody ever
treated her very wrong. She was the only one ever chastised me. They
spoiled me. We got plenty plain rations. I never seen nobody married
till after the surrender. I seen one woman chastised. I wasn't close. I
never learned what it was about. Old Master Reaves was laying it on.
"Mother moved to New Castle, Tennessee from Mr. Reaves' place. We
farmed--three of us. We had been living southeast of Boliver, Tennessee,
in Hardeman County. I think my kin folks are all dead. Father's other
children may be over in Tennessee now. Yes, I know them. Mother died
over at Palestine with me. She always lived with me. I married twice,
had one child by each wife. Both wives are dead and my children are
dead.
"Mother said I had three older brothers went to the Civil War and never
come back home. She never heard from them after they went off. I don't
know but it was my understanding that they was to be soldiers. I don't
recollect them.
"Mother got so she wasn't able to work in the field several years before
she died. She worked in the field long as she was able. She lived with
me all my whole life till she died. But I farmed. Some years we done
well and some years we jess could live. I farmed all my life but a few
years. I love farm life. It is independent living. I mean you are about
your own man out there. I work my garden out at my shop now. I make
baskets and bottom chairs at Palestine. A few years I kept Mrs.
Wilkerson's yard and garden. Her husband died and she moved off to
Memphis. They did live at Palestine.
"I heard it said that Reaves said he could keep his own farm. The Ku
Klux never bothered us. I have heard a lot of things but I am telling
you what I know. I don't know nothing about the Civil War nor the Ku
Klux. I was most too small a boy at that time to know much.
"I used to vote. Can't write my name. Don't fool with it.
"I went to school on rainy days. I went a few other days. People used
to have to work. I always wanted to work. I piddle around all the time
working now. I went to colored teachers all together. I can read a
little.
"I had a brother-in-law in Arkansas. I heard a lot of talk. I come on
a visit and stayed three months. I went back and moved here. I come to
this State--over at Palestine--March 11, 1883 on Sunday. I have a good
recollection, or I think I have for my age. I've lived a pretty sensible
life, worked hard but had good health. If I had another life to live now
I would go to the farm. I love farm life.
"I chop wood, garden, go in the woods get my splints for baskets,
chairs. I live by myself. I eat out some with I call them kin. They are
my sister's children. I get some help, $10 and commodities.
"When I did vote I voted Republican or I thought I did. But now if I did
vote, I might change up. Times have changed.
"I don't know much about the young generation. I do talk with
them--some. They are coming up in a changed time. I wouldn't talk
against the colored race of people. Some of them work--are good. Some
don't. I think some will not work. Maybe they would. I come to know
mighty little about them--no more than I know about the white girls and
boys. I see them on the streets about as much as I ever see colored
folks anywhere."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jane Reece
819 W. Ninth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"I know this--I'm 85. I was born in North Carolina.
"Oh, yes'm, I 'member the War.
"I'm three thousand miles from my home.
"Old John Blue (Belew?) was my white folks.
"I did have good white folks. Yes ma'am, I'll say that. Stayed there a
long time after we was sot free. They was good to us.
"My mother was the mother of twelve chillun--she was a fast breeder.
"I was the onliest girl and old missis was just wild about me. I had
good owners. I don't remember no hard treatment among 'em.
"I 'member she used to have me runnin' from house to house totin' a
little note. That's the reason I had such a good time. Heap of times I
slept up at the big house with old missis.
"I got a good memory. We was allowed to sing and pray. I know our white
folks was good that way. I'll say that for 'em. I won't go back on 'em.
"Our folks stayed right on there a long time.
"My father died three years after ever'thing had done got quiet and
peaceful.
"I left my husband back there and come here to Arkansas with my mother.
"The bigges' work I done--I used to be terrible 'bout cookin', washin'
and ironin', and field work. Ever'thing a man ever done I've done--cut
wood, cut down sprouts, barn brush--I've done ever'thing.
"Oh yes, I went to school a whole lot. Got so I could read. Used to
write too, but all that done left me.
"I'm gwine tell you the truth, lady. I don't know whether the folks is
better off free or not. They is better off in one way--they is free--but
this young race is the devil."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Frank Reed,
1004 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was a little boy pickin' up chips and helpin' feed the hog in slavery
times for old master. Name was George Houston. That was in Alabama.
"I reckon I do remember George Houston. As far as I know he was good to
us. I remember when he died.
"Our people stayed right there after freedom. My mother was a Houston
till she married.
"I reckon I do remember the paddyrollers. I remember the hounds runnin'
too. I never thought I would remember that no more.
"They didn't get after me 'cause I was too little. It didn't last long
enough for 'em to get after me.
"I'm sick and not able to help myself. I got run over by a wagon.
"I'm livin' here with my daughter. Her husband is a preacher and they
got eight children, so you can imagine how much they can do for me.
"One word of the white folks is worth a thousand of ours."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Reeves
2419 W. Twentieth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 68
Occupation: Preacher
"I was born in 1870 down in Ouachita County about fourteen miles south
of Camden going on toward El Dorado. They didn't have no railroad then.
I was a young man when they put the branch through. You see, I was born
five years after slavery, but I remember my mother, my grandmother, and
my great-grandmother. They taken me and talked to me freely and I know
everything they knew.
Great-Grandmother on Mother's Side
"My great-grandmother belonged to the Goodmans. Her master was named
Bob Goodman. She lived to get one hundred thirteen years old. From the
children of the old master, I got the information concerning her age.
I looked it up after emancipation. One of old master's sons was named
Frank Goodman, and another was named Norphleet Goodman, and there was
another whose name I don't recall.
"My grandmother, great-grandmother, was named Frankie Goodman. I wasn't
here in slavery time, but I knew her after emancipation.
Grandmother on Mother's Side
"My grandmother was named Hannah Goodman. These were different Goodmans
but they were kin to these others. There was a large family of them.
I don't know the correct age of my grandmother but she was up in the
eighties when she died.
Mother
"My mother was born a Goodman, but she married Reeves, my father. The
record of their marriage I ain't got. Back there, they didn't keep up
like you and I do, and we don't keep up like these younger folks do.
Near as I could get it, she lived to be about seventy-one years old.
Father
"My father was named Adam Reeves. His master was named Rick Reeves. My
father was born in Union County about ten miles from El Dorado. You
might say north of El Dorado because he lived south of Camden. He lived
there all his life. I have known him to move out of Ouachita County into
Union, and from Union back to Ouachita.
Grandfather on Mother's Side
"My grandfather on my mother's aide was Henry Goodman. His mistress was
a woman by the name of Lucy Goodman. She was the same woman who owned my
mother. There was a big family of them Goodmans.
"His age--he lived to be about eighty years old. He died in Hot Spring
County.
Grandmother on Father's Side
"My grandmother on my father's side was named Hetty. Her master was
named Sam Abbott. She lived right close to seventy-four or seventy-five
years. She been gone quite a while now. She used to live with papa.
Other Ancestors
"I don't know so much about another of my ancestors.
Wife
"My wife didn't have many people. She knows her mother, her mother's
mistress, and all. Her ma was named Martha Henson. That was her married
name. Her mistress' last name was Stribling. Martha Henson was a
well-treated slave. The Striblings lived in Rockport, Arkansas, but
their native home was Georgia. I don't know where the Striblings are
now. The old man died before the Civil War broke out. I guess they are
all dead and in torment. My wife's grandmother and grandfather on her
mother's side were gone so far back that neither she nor I know anything
about them.
Whippings
"My great-grandmother on my mother's side was in Union County when I
knew anything of her--close to El Dorado. I was about twenty-two years
old when she died. She was tall and spare built, dark ginger cake color.
Coarse straight black hair that had begun to mingle with gray. She never
did get real gray, and her hair was never white. Even when she died, at
a hundred and thirteen years, her hair was mostly black mingled with
gray.
"The overseer knocked her in the head in slavery times, and they had to
put a silver half-dollar in her head to hold her brains in. I have seen
the place myself. When I was a little fellow she used to let me feel the
place and she would say, 'That's where the overseer knocked granny in
the head, son. I got a half-dollar in there.' I would put her hair
aside--my but she had beautiful hair!--and look at the place.
"My wife could tell you what my mother told her. She has seen the marks
on my mother's back and has asked, 'Mama, what's all these marks on your
back?' And mama would say, 'That's where I was whipped in slavery times,
daughter.' She never did like to tell the details. But the scars were
awful.
"My grandmother was roughly treated and she had pretty near lost her
eyesight from the ill treatment. She got so before she died that she
could hardly see to go nowhere. I don't know what it was they done to
her that made her eyesight bad, but she insisted that it was due to bad
treatment in slavery time.
Patrollers
"I have heard that the pateroles used to run the slaves if they didn't
have a pass from their mistress and master. The pateroles would run them
and catch them and whip them.
How Freedom Came
"All my mother knew was that it got out that the Negroes were free. The
day before the old woman told them that they were free, my grandfather,
Henry Goodman who was a teamster, old mis' called him and told him to
tell all the darkies to come up to the house the next day.
"Next morning, she said, 'Henry, you forgot what I told you. I want you
to call all the darkies up here this morning.' Henry had a voice like a
fog-horn. He started hollering. I wish I could holler the way he did,
but I got to consider the neighbors. He hollered. 'Tention, 'tention,
hey; Miss Lucy says she wants you all up to the big house this morning.
She's got somepin to tell you.'
"They all come up to the yard before the house. When they got there, she
says to him--not to them; she wouldn't talk to them that morning; maybe
she was too full--'Henry, you all just as free now as I am. You can stay
here with Miss Lucy or you can go to work with whomsoever you will. You
don't belong to Miss Lucy no more.'
"She had been sick for quite a bit, and she was just able to come to the
door and deliver that message. Three weeks after that time, they brought
her out of the house feet foremost and took her to the cemetery. The
news killed her dead. That's been seventy years ago, and they just now
picking up on it!
Slave Time Amusements
"The old people say they used to have breakdowns in slave
time--breakdown dances with fiddle and banjo music. Far after slavery,
they had them. The only other amusement worth speaking about was the
churches. Far as the churches was concerned, they had to steal out and
go to them. Old man Balm Whitlow can tell you all about the way they
held church. They would slip off in the woods and carry a gang of
darkies down, and the next morning old master would whip them for it.
Next Sunday they would do the same thing again and get another whipping.
And it went on like that every week. When old man Whitlow came out from
slavery, he continued to preach. But the darkies didn't have to steal
out then. He's dead now, him and the old lady both.
Houses
"The slaves lived in old log houses. Some of them would be hewed and put
up well. I have seen lots of them. Sometimes they would dob the cracks
with mud and would have box planks floors, one by eight or one by ten,
rough lumber, not dressed. Set 'em as close together as they could but
then there would be cracks in them. I can carry you to some old log
houses down in Union County now if they haven't been torn down recently.
"One old log house there used to be old lady Lucy Goodman's home. It
has four rooms. It has a hall running through it. It was built in slave
times. There is a spring about two hundred yards from it. That is about
ten or twelve feet deep. There is a big cypress tree trunk hollowed out
and sunk down in it to make a curbing. That cypress is about two or
three feet across. The old man, Henry Goodman, sunk that cypress down in
there in slavery time. He drove an ox team all the time. That is all the
work he done. She would tell all the overseers, 'Now, don't you fool
with Henry because we ain't never whipped him ourselves.'
"I don't know who it is that is living now. It's been fifty years ago
since I was there.
Right After Freedom
"Right after freedom, when the surrender came, my mother was just a girl
'bout fifteen or sixteen. She married after freedom. Her and her husband
farmed for a living--you know, sharecropped.
Ku Klux Klan
"The Ku Klux and the pateroles were the same thing, only the Klan was
more up to date. It's all set up with a hellish principle. It's old
Pharaoh exactly.
"The Ku Klux Klan didn't have no particular effect on the Negro except
to scare him.
"When the emancipation came about, the people of the South went to work
to see what they could do about it. The whole South was under martial
law. Some of the people formed the Ku Klux Klan to keep the Negro down.
I never remember that they bothered any of our family or the people in
our house. But they scared some and whipped more, and killed some.
Political Trouble about 1888
"The darkies and the white folks in Union County had an insurrection
over the polls about the year 1888. In them days, when you wanted to put
a Republican man in, you didn't have to do much campaigning. They
just went to the polls and put him in. Everybody that could vote was
Republican. In the fall of 1888 they had a great trouble down there, and
some of them got killed. They went around and commanded the Negroes not
to go to the polls the next day. Some of the Negroes would tell them,
'Well, I am going to the polls tomorrow if I have to crawl.' And then
some of them would say, 'I'd like to know how you goin' to vote.' The
nigger would ask right back, 'How you goin' to vote?' The white man
would say, 'I'm goin' to vote as I damn please.' Then the nigger would
say, 'I'm going to do the same thing.' That started the trouble.
"On Sunday before the election on Monday, they went around through that
county in gangs. They shot some few of the Negroes. As the Negroes
didn't have no weapons to protect theirselves, they didn't have no
chance. In that way, quite a few of the Negroes disbanded their homes
and went into different counties and different portions of the state and
different states. Henry Goodman, my grandfather, came into Hot Spring
County in this way.
Opinions
"Roosevelt has got himself in a predicament. They are drunk and don't
know what to do. The whole world is stirred up over why one-fourth of
the world should rule the other three-fourths. One-fourth of the world
is white. The Bible says a house divided can't stand. The people don't
know what to do. Look how they fight the Wage Hour Bill. Look at the
excitement they raised when it was first suggested that the Union and
Confederate veterans meet together.
"We were savages when we came over here. Everything we got and
everything we know, good and bad, we got from the white folks. Don't
know how they can get impatient with us when everything we do they
learnt us.
"Roosevelt has done more than any Democrat that has ever been in the
Chair. He had to do something to keep down a rebellion. Then we like to
had one as it is through the labor question.
"The poor white man always has been in a tight [HW: place]. He was
almost as much oppressed as the Negro.
"The young people of today ain't got no sense. They don't give no
thought to nothing. They don't know how to think at all. All the
schools and education they give don't make them think. If I had as much
education as they have, I would be able to accomplish something. The
teachers don't press down on them and make them know what they go over.
There is a whole lot of things happening now.
Old People in Pulaski County
"Out in Pulaski County, going west out the Nineteenth Street Pike till
you strike the Saline County line, there are quite a few old colored
people. I guess you would find no leas than twenty-five or thirty out
that way. There is one old man named Junius Peterson out that way who
used to run a mill. If you find him, he is very old and has a good
memory. He is a mulatto. You could get out to him by going down till you
come to a place that is called the Henderson Lane. You turn to the right
and go off the pike less than a mile and you come to a big one-story
house settin' on a hill where Peterson lives. Right on beyond that about
three-fourths of a mile on the right side of the road, you come to
George Gregory's. The mother of my church is about eighty-one years old
but she is over in Saline County. Her name is Jane Joyner.
"There are quite a few old persons around Woodson that can give you
information. But that is in Saline County, I think. Sweet Home,
Wrightsville, Toltec--all of them have a few old colored persons on the
farm that was here in slavery times."
Interviewer's Comment
Reeves' story was taken because of his clear memories of his parents
and grandparents. He described to me an old log house still standing in
Union County.
I got all agog with excitement. I asked him for the exact location. He
gave it. Then I suggested that maybe he would go down with me sometime
to visit it. He agreed. Then at the last moment caution began to assert
itself, and I said, "When was the last time you saw the cabin?"
He reflected a moment; then he said, "Waal, I guess it was a little more
'an fifty years ago."
I lost my enthusiasm.
Reeves told the Phill-la-me-york story which was told by Austin Pen
Parnell. You will find it in his story. The only difference between his
story and Parnell's is that Reeves had the conclusion. He claimed that
the old master got in a fight with one of the slaves present and yelled
out his identity when he was getting badly beaten. The story sounds
like it came from the Arkansas folklore collection or from someone who
contributed it to that collection.
An aftermath of Reeves' story is finding out that most people consider
Henry Banner, whose story has been previously given and whose age was
given as eighty-nine, is considered by many persons to be ninety-four.
Neely, one of the adult school-teachers, says that he has gone over
Banner's life carefully with him, and that he must have been twenty-one
or twenty-two at the close of the War because during slavery, he had
experience at logging, or rather at logrolling, a work so difficult that
only full-grown men were used at it. Since Banner is slightly built,
there is scarcely a possibility that he did such work before the normal
time.
[HW: Cf. 30715 for interview with Parnell.]
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person Interviewed: Shepherd Rhone
10th and Kentucky
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 75
"Yes ma'am, I was bred and born in 'sixty-three in Phillips County,
Arkansas, close to Helena, on old Judge Jones' plantation. Judge Jones,
he was a lawyer. Remember him? I ought to, he whiped me enough. His
wife's name was Caroline Jones. She used to smack my jaws and pull
my ears but she was a pretty good woman. The old judge was a raw one
though. You had to step around or he'd step around for you.
"I stayed right there till I was grown. My mother was named Katie Rhone
and my father was named Daniel Rhone. My mother was born in Richmond,
Virginia and my father in Petersburg, Virginia.
"Judge Jones brought em here to Arkansas. My father was a bodyguard for
old Judge Jones' son Tom in the War. My father stuck with him till peace
declared--had to do it.
"They was thirteen of us chillun and they is all gone but me, and I'll
soon be gone.
"I know when the Yankees come I run from em. When peace declared, the
Yankees come all through our house and took everything they could get
hold of to eat.
"The only reason the Yankees whipped the South was they starved em.
"I know one time when peace declared I caught afire and I run and jumped
in a tub of water and I had sense enough not to tell my mother. A girl I
was raised up with went and told her though.
"After freedom I worked for old Judge Jones on the half system. He give
me everthing that was due me. When he was eighty years old, he called
all his old tenants up and give em a mule and twenty-five dollars. He
was pretty good to em after all.
"I went to free school in the summertime after the crops was laid by, I
can read and write pretty good.
"I came here to Jefferson County in 'eighty-six and I put in thirty-six
years at the Cotton Belt Shops. When that strike come on they told us
colored folks to quit and I never went back. I worked for em when she
was a narrow gauge.
"I worked in the North three years. I nightwatched all over St. Louis
and Madison, Illinois. I liked it fine up there--white folks is more
familiar up there and seems like you can get favors. If I don't get
somethin' here, I'm goin' back up there.
"When I got big enough I voted the Republican ticket and after they got
this primary. I think the colored people ought to vote now cause they
make em pay taxes.
"I'll tell you right now, the younger generation is goin' to the dogs.
We'll never make a nation of em as long as they go out to these places
at night. They ought to be a law passed. When nine o'clock comes they
ought to be home in bed, but they is just gettin' started then.
"I belong to the Catholic Church. I think it's a pretty good church. We
have a white priest and I'll tell you one thing thing--you can't get a
divorce and marry again and stay in the Catholic Church."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Dora Richard
3301 W. 14th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 76
"I was born in South Carolina and I was my mother's baby chile.
"Jacob Foster was our old master and he sold my mother over in east
Tennessee. Now of cose she wasn't put upon the block and sold. She was
the house woman and spin and wove. After they sold her my father run
off. Oh sure, they caught him and I know old mistress said, 'Now, Jacob,
if you want to go where Lydia is, you can go.' So they sold him near
her.
"I stayed with the Fosters till peace was declared and ever'thing was
declared free. Then my father come after me.
"I can just sketch things. I try to forget it. My mother and father was
pretty agreeable when they was set free.
"In Tennessee we stayed at the foot of Lookout Mountain and I can
remember seein' the cannon balls.
"Here's the way I want to tell you. Some of the white people are as good
to the colored people as they could be and some of em are mean. My own
folks do so bad I'm ashamed of em.
"So many of the colored of the South have emigrated to the North. I have
lived there and I don't know why I'm here now.
"Some of my color don't like that about the Jim Crow Law, but I say if
they furnish us a nice comfortable coach I would rather be with my own
people. And I don't care to go to the white folks' church.
"My mother used to tell me how they used to hide behind trees so the
boss man couldn't see em when they was prayin' and at night put out the
light and turn the pot down.
"I went to school in Tennessee. I never will forget it. I had a white
teacher. He was in the War and he had a leg shot off. I went through the
sixth grade and was ready for the seventh Ray's Arithmetic. I walked
four miles there and four miles back--eight miles a day.
"I can remember too when my mother and father was baptized. I know mama
come out of the water a shoutin'. Oh, that was good times then. I felt
better when I was under my mother cause when I married my life was over.
I raised about ten children.
"I remember when the Ku Klux come to my sister's house lookin' for her
husband. I know I was in the bed and I raised up. I was scared you know.
"When I hear some colored folks say they wish the old slavery times was
back, I just knows they is lazy. They don't want any responsibility."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jim Ricks
517 E. 22nd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79
"I was born in slavery times. I 'member runnin' from the Yankees when
they wanted to carry me off. Just devilin' me, you know. You know how
little chillun was 'bout white folks in them days.
"I went to school three weeks and my daddy stopped me and put me to
work.
"Old master was named Jimmie Ricks. They named me after him, I think.
"My mother said he was a mighty good master. Didn't 'low his niggers
whipped.
"Yes'm, I was born and raised in Arkansas, down here in Calhoun County.
"I had a chance to learn but I was a rowdy. I wanted to hunt. I was a
mighty huntsman.
"I was a good worker too. White folks was all stuck on me 'cause I was a
good worker.
"I did farm work and then did public work after the crops was laid by.
But now I got too old to work.
"I seen the Ku Klux once or twice when they was Ku Klukin' around. Some
of 'em would holler 'Kluk, kluk, kluk.' I was quite small, but I could
remember 'am 'cause I was scared of 'em.
"I farmed all my life till year before last. I was a good farmer too.
"I used to vote years ago. I voted Republican. Yes ma'am.
"Younger generation ain't near like they was when I was young. I was
well thought of. Couldn't be out after sundown or they'd bump my head.
My stepfather would give me a flailin'. I thought he was mean to me but
I see now he done right by whippin' me.
"I know in slavery times they got plenty of somethin' to eat. Old master
fed us well."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Charlie Rigger
R.F.D., three miles, Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 85 plus, doesn't know age
"I was born six miles from Mounticellar close to the line of Morgan and
Jasper County. Mother belong to the Smiths. Her father was part Creek
(Indian). They all was sold to Floyd Malone. His wife was Betsy Malone.
They had five children.
"When I was a child I lay under the loom day after day picking up the
sickle. Ma was a cook and a weaver too.
"Malone was a good man but his wife was one of 'em. She was a terrible
piece of humanity. Father was a farm hand. They had a gin, a shoe shop,
and a blacksmith shop all on Floyd Malone's place. I picked a little
cotton before 'mancipation. Floyd Malone had to buy my mother to git her
where my father was.
"Some of the boys wore dresses till they was twelve or fifteen years
old. One fellar rode a mule or cow one the other to preaching. While
he sit talking to his gal at the window a steer cone up and et off his
dress tail. Boys got to courting before they got to take off their long
shirts.
"They wasn't so good to mother. She run off several times. She went
'bout one and one-half miles to her mother on the Compton place. They
didn't whoop her. They promised her a whooping. They whooped her and me
too but I never knowed 'em to whoop my father. When they whoop my mother
I'd run off to place we lived and crawl under the house.
"We chillun had nothing to do wid coffee. We drunk milk out little
bowls. We'd turn it up or lap it out which one could do the best. They
fed us. We'd ask for more till we got filled up.
"I recollect the soldiers come by in July 1863 or 1864 and back in
December. I heard talk so long 'fore they got there I knowed who they
was. They took my oldest brother. He didn't want to go. We never heard
from him. He never come back. My white master hid out. He didn't go
to war. One son went and come back. It was the Yankees made my oldest
brother go. The first crowd in July swapped their wore-out scrub stock
for our good stock. That second crowd cleaned them out, took our hogs.
Miss Betty had died 'fore they come in July. That second crowd come in
December. They cleaned out everything to eat and wear. They set the
house 'fire several times with paper and coal oil (kerosene). It went
out every time. One told the captain. He come up behind. It went out
every time. He said, 'Let's move on.' They left it clean and bare. We
didn't like them. We had meat hid in the cellar. We got hungry that
spring sure as you born.
"The old man married pretty soon after freedom. He married young to what
he was.
"I didn't find much fault to slavery 'cepting the abuse. We et three
times a day and now if I get one piece I do well. Mother cooked, washed,
ironed and spun four cuts a day. We all et at the master's kitchen three
times a day. We had thirty-two families. I've heard that ag'in time and
ag'in so as I recollect it till now. We didn't have to work no harder
'en we do now if you have a living.
"Master waited till all there. He had a horn made sorter like a bugle
for that business. Called us to our meals. We stayed a year. Went to his
brother's one year, then to Major Lane's big farm. We had to work about
the same as b'fore freedom. Not much change.
"The Ku Klux come 'round right smart. Some had on skin coverings, cow
heads and horns. Some wore white sheets and black dresses on white
horses. They was scary looking. They would whoop and kill too. I was too
scared to get caught off at night.
"Mother died. I was traveling about. I spent thirteen months in
Mississippi. Three winters right in Memphis. I married in Mississippi. I
left two daughters in Georgia. My wife died. I come to Arkansas in 1902.
I live all alone.
"This present generation is traveling too fast. It-is-to-be. Fast
traveling and education. Times not good as it always have been b'fore
that last war (World War). When the white folks start jowing we black
folks suffers. It ain't a bit our fault. Education causes the black man
to see he is bit (cheated) but he better not say a word. It very good
thing if it is used right. Fast traveling is all right in its place. But
too many is traveling and they all want to be going. We got into pretty
fast time of it now. It-is-to-be and it's getting shoved on faster."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ida Rigley, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 82
"I was born in Richmond, Virginia. Colonel Radford and Emma Radford
owned my mother. They had a older girl, Emma and Betty and three boys. I
called her Miss Betty.
"My mother was Sylvia Jones and she had five children. Bill Jones was my
father. He was a born free man and a blacksmith at Lynchburg, Virginia
in slavery times.
"He asked Colonel Radford could he come to see my mama and marry her.
They had a wedding in Colonel Radford's dining room and a preacher on
the place married them. They told me. My father was a Presbyterian
preacher. I heard papa preach at Lynchburg. He had a white principle but
no white blood. I never knew him very much till long after freedom.
"Miss Betty Radford was raising me for a house girl. I was younger
than her children. Mother was a weaver for all on the place. Old aunt
Caroline was the regular cook but my mother helped to cook for hands he
hired at busy seasons of the year. My sisters lived in the quarters and
mama slept with them. She helped them. They worked in the field some.
They was careful not to overwork young hands. They cooked down at the
quarters. They had a real old man and woman to set about and see after
the children and feed them. The older children looked after the babies.
When Miss Betty went off visiting she would send me down there. I did
love it.
"Emma and Betty went to school at Richmond in a buggy. They had a
colored boy driver. He was the carriage driver. Emma and Betty would
play with me too. Miss Betty fed me all the time. She made me a bonnet
and I can't get shed of my bonnet yet. I got four bonnets now.
"When the white folks had a wedding it lasted a week. They had a second
day dress and a third day dress and had suppers and dinner receptions
about among the kin folks. They had big chests full of quilts and
coverlets and counterpanes they been packing back. Some of them would
have big dances. A wedding would last a week, night and day.
"They had a farm right. We had peacocks, white guinea and big black
turkeys, cows, sheep, goats, hogs; he had deer. He kept their horns cut
off and some of the cow's horns were off. We had a acre in a garden and
had roses and all kinds of flowers. I like flowers now. Tries to have
'em. They had a gin on the place. He raised corn, rye, cotton, and
tobacco. The hands got their supplies on Saturday. On rainy days all the
women would knit, white and colored both. Miss Betty knitted some at
night in winter. They had a shop to sharpen and keep all the tools in. A
particular old man made the brooms and rakes.
"It seem like there wasn't so many flies. Miss Betty mixed up molasses
and flour and poison and killed flies sometimes. She spread it on brown
paper. We had fly weed tea to set about too sometimes. We didn't have
to use anything regular. We didn't have no screens. We had mighty few
mosquitoes. We had peafowl fly brushes. They was mighty pretty.
"One thing we had was a deep walled well and an ice-house. They cut ice
in blocks and put it up for winter[HW:?]. We had one spring on the place
I know.
"They kept hounds. Colonel Radford's boys and the colored boys all went
hunting. We had 'possum and potatoes all along in winter; 'possum grease
won't make you sick. Eat all you want. I'd hear their horn and the dogs.
They would come in hungry every time. I never seen no whiskey. He had
his cider and vinegar press and made wine. We had cider and wine all
along. Colonel Radford was his own overseer and Charlie his oldest boy.
They whooped mighty little. They would stand up and be whooped. Some of
the young ones was hard-headed and rude. He advised them and they minded
him pretty well.
"Our yards was large and beautiful; some had grass and some clean spots
about in the shade. Friday was wash day. Saturday was iron day. Miss
Betty would go about in the quarters to see if the houses was scrubbed
every week after washing. They had to wear clean clothes and have clean
beds about her place. She'd shame them to death.
"Colonel Radford had a colored church for us all. It was a log house and
he had a office for his boys to read and write and smoke cob pipes in.
The white folks' church was at the corner of his place. I went there
most. They shouted and pat their hands. Colonel Radford was a Baptist.
"Nearly every farm had a fiddler. Ever so often he had a big dance in
their parlor. I'd try to dance by myself. He had his own music by the
hands on his place. He let them have dances at the quarters every now
and then. Dancing was a piece of his religion.
"I don't think our everyday frocks was stiffened but our dress up
clothes was. It was made out of flour--boiled flour starch. We had
striped dresses and stockings too. We had checked dresses. We had
goobers and a chestnut grove. We had a huckleberry patch. We had maple
sugar to eat. It was good. We had popcorn and chinquapins in the fall
of the year, I used to pick up chips to use at the pot. I had a little
basket. I picked up corn cobs. They burnt them and made corn cob soda to
use in the bread and cakes. We parched peeled sweet potatoes slice thin
and made coffee.
"The Civil War was terrible. One morning before we was all out of bed
the Yankees come. It was about daylight. He and the three boys were
there. They didn't burn any houses and they didn't hesitate but they
took everything. They took all Miss Betty's nice silverware. They took
fine quilts and feather beds. That was in the fall of the year. They
drove off a line of our slaves (a block long) fer as from me to that
railroad. Made them go. They walked fast in front of the cavalrymen.
They took mama and my sisters. She got away from them with her girls and
found her way back to papa at Lynchburg.
"Colonel Radford went and took some of the slave men and his boys. They
brought home plenty beds and a barrel of salt. He brought back plenty.
He sent his slave man to town any time. They had no notion leaving.
"One time some Yankees come. I run hid around Miss Betty's long dress.
She was crying. They was pulling her rings off her fingers. I told them
to quit that. One of the mean things said, 'Little nigger, I shoot your
head off.' They took all her nice clothes. They said they took all
niggers. I sassed them. They went in another room. I shot under Miss
Betty's big skirt. They looked about for me but they thought I run off
to my mama. She was gone but they didn't know it. I seen my best times
then. We had a good time there. Miss Betty was good and kind to me. Good
as I wanted. I wish I had that good now.
Freedom
"The soldiers come and I knowed it was the Yankees I hated. They took
all they could find and wasted a lot of it. I was scared. I kept hid
about. The slaves put their beds and clothes up on the wagons and went
off behind them and some clumb up in the wagons. I heard Miss Betty say,
'They need not follow them off, they are already free.' The way she said
it, like she was heart broken, made me nearly cry and I remember her
very words till this day. She was a good woman.
"Mama come and got me long time after that and I didn't want to go nor
stay neither. It was like taking me off from my own home. Papa was
freeborn and freedom I couldn't understand till I was long grown. I
never got a whooping in my life. I was taught politeness.
"During slavery we bought mighty little. Flour in barrels, salt. We had
Maple sugar and sorghum molasses in bounty. We was happy and had plenty
to eat and wear.
"I learned to make the fine cakes from a Jew woman (Jewess), Mrs. Isaac.
I've been called a cook here in Forrest City. I was taught by Mrs. Isaac
to make angel food, coffee cake, white bread and white cakes. From that
I made the other kinds my own self."
Interviewer's Comment
People in Forrest City send for Ida and keep her a week or two baking
Christmas and wedding cakes.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Milton Ritchie
R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born in Marietta Hotel at Marietta, Georgia. The hotel belong to
Milton Stevens. He had two sons. One died fo I was born and Pink was in
the war. Mistress Thursday was old moster's wife. We all had to refugee.
My sister was down in the bottoms with all the slaves and cattle when
she died. She took sick and died suddenly. They heard the soldiers was
coming to Atlanta and knowed they would come by Marietta. Moster Stevens
sold the hotel just at the beginning of the war. He moved to the
country. Mama cooked at the hotel and in the country both. The hotel was
a brick house on the railroad where they fed a lot of people every day.
Moster Milton used to take me bout where he went, rode me on his foot
when I was a baby. After they went to the farm every evening Mistress
Thursday come get me, take me to the house. She got bread and butter,
sugar, give it to me and I slept on a pallet in her room. I never did
know why she done that. Mama had a little house she slept in. She
cooked. They never whooped me. They never whooped mama.
"One time the Federal army camped not a great ways from us. One time I
was playing in a gully--big red ditch. I spied the Federals coming. I
flew out the ditch up the hill and across the field. They was calvary
men camped back of our field. We all left that place and refugeed to
another place. They didn't burn the house but they sent two bullets
through the walls or that house. 'Old Granny' was too old to refugee.
She kept living by herself in a house on the place. They never bothered
her. She wasn't kin to us but Moster Milton owned her and kept her fed.
We raised sugar-cane, hogs, corn, and goobers. The sugar-cane had
no top. I got a whooping every Monday. Mama whoop me. We go drink
sugar-cane juice in the trough at the mill. We got up in there with our
feet. They had to wash out the troughs. It was a wood house. It was a
big mill. He sold that good syrup in Atlanta. It wasn't sorghum. The men
at the mill would scare us but we hid around. They come up to the house
and tell on us.
"We had moved from the farm when they burned Atlanta. From the place
where Moster Milton refugeed I could hear a roaring all the time nearly,
sometimes clearer, and the roaring was broke sometimes.
"Moster Milton ran the farm when he run the hotel cept I was born at
the hotel and Mistress Thursday lived there then too. He had all Negro
overseers. Each overseer had a certain lot of hands to do what he told
them. He didn't have no trouble. He told them if they made something for
them and him too it would be fine, if they didn't work they would have
to do without. They had plenty they said.
"My mama was sold on the block in Virginia when she was twelve years
old. She and her little brother sold the same day. Moster Milton Stevens
bought her. The same man couldn't buy them both, didn't have money
enough. They had a little blanket and she and her brother cut it into
and put it around their shoulders. They been sleeping together and
Moster Milton brought her home on his horse up behind him. Her mama was
crying when she left her. She never heard nor seen none of her folks no
more she told me. (The old Negro cried.)
"My mama and papa was dark but both was mixed. They never told me if it
was white or Indian. Papa was a tall, big bony man. Mama wasn't so big
and stouter. He never tried to get away from his owners. He belong to
Sam Ritchie five or six miles away. I never beard much about them. They
had Negro overseers. Papa was a foreman. He tanned the cow hides and
made shoes for all the hands on Ritchie's place. He made our shoes over
there too. They said Stevens and Ritchies didn't keep bad dogs. Mistress
Eliza Ritchie was a Stevens before she married. Papa never was sold. He
said they was good to them. Mama was named Eliza too and papa George
Ritchie.
"When freedom was on papa went to Atlanta and got transportation to
Chattanooga. I don't know why. He met me and mama. She picked me up and
run away and met him. We went in a freight box. It had been a soldier's
home--great big house. We et on the first story out of tin pans. We had
white beans or peas, crackers and coffee. Meat and wheat and cornbread
we never smelt at that place. Somebody ask him how we got there and he
showed them a ticket from the Freedmans bureau in Atlanta. He showed
that on the train every now and then. Upstairs they brought out a stack
of wool blankets and started the rows of beds. Each man took his three
as he was numbered. Every night the same one got his own blankets. The
room was full of beds and white guards with a gun over his shoulder
guarded them all night long. We stayed there a long time--nearly a year.
They tried to get jobs fast as they could and push em out but it was
slow work. Mama got a place to cook at--Mrs. Crutchfield's. She run a
hotel in town but lived in the country. We stayed there about a year.
Papa was hired somewhere else there.
"Papa got us on a farm in middle Tennessee after that. We come to Mr.
Hooper's place and share cropped one year, then we went to share crop
for Wells Brothers close to Murfreesboro. I been on the farm all my life
since then.
"The Ku Klux never pestered us. I heard about them.
"The Welfare helps me and I would do work if I could get work I can do.
I could do light work. Times is hard. Hard to get a living. I don't mind
work. I couldn't do a day's work now.
"The young generation is beyond me. I don't be about them much."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Alice Rivers
W. 17th, Highland Addition, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 81
"Yes'm, I remember when the Yankees come. I ricollect when they throwed
out all the meat from old master's smokehouse. The colored folks was
tryin' to ketch it and I know I tried to ketch it too.
"Don't I look like I been here in Reb. time? I was born in Mississippi
on Colonel Reed's place in 1857.
"I just know the Yankees come through. Had on blue coats with gold
lookin' buttons. I never will forget it 'cause it was so frightening.
"I can ricollect way back there.
"I don't know whether the white folks was good or not, we hardly ever
saw 'em. Had a old woman that cooked for the chillun at the quarters.
I ricollect they had a big old kittle and she'd cook that full of
somethin'. I know the old lady give us plenty of somethin' to eat.
"All the white folks didn't treat their hands mean. Some of 'em was a
fool 'bout them little niggers.
"Old woman what cooked for the chillun was old Aunt Henie and she walked
half bent with a stick.
"I went to school some after freedom. Learned how to spell and read but
not much writin'.
"I can't tell you 'bout no whippin's 'cause if they whipped the folks
they didn't do it at the quarters where the chillun was.
"I been farmin' all my life till I come to Arkansas in 1916. Since then
I first cooked and washed. I ain't worked out in three years now.
"I gets a little pension from the Welfare and I make out on that. My
granddaughter lives with me. She will finish high school in May and then
she can take care of herself.
"I used to own this place but it was sold for taxes. Don't make any
difference if you is as old as Methuselah you got to pay them taxes. Old
Caeser started 'em and we've had to pay 'em ever since.
"Younger generation ain't mannerly now like they was when I was young.
Chillun used to be obedient but they got to have their way now. Old
folks done put the chillun where they is now and they ought to take care
of 'em.
"I don't know where the world gwine come to in the next five years. I
reckon they'll all be dead way they're gwine now. Storms takin' 'em away
here and war in them other countries."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: J. Roberts, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 45 or 50
Occupation: Methodist preacher
"My father was a Federal soldier in the Civil War. He was from Winston,
Virginia. He went to war and soon after the end he came to Holly Grove.
He was in Company "K". He signed up six or seven papers for men in his
company he knew and they all got their pensions. Oh yes! He knew them.
He was an awful exact honest man. He was a very young man when he went
into the war and never married till he come to Arkansas. He married a
slave woman. She was a field woman. They farmed. Father sat by the hour
and told how he endured the war. He never expected to come out alive
after a few months in the war.
"John Roberts Collins was his owner in slavery. I never heard why he cut
off the Collins. I call my own self J. Roberts."
"The present times are hard times. Sin hath caused it all. Machinery has
taken so much of the work."
"The present generation are fair folks but wild. Yes, the young folks
today are wilder than my set was. I can't tell you how but I see it
every way I go."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: George Robertson? or George Robinson?
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 81
"My papa named Abe Robertson. His owner named Tom Robertson. I was born
in middle Tennessee. My mama named Isabela Brooks. Her master named
Billy Brooks. His wife name Mary Brooks. My master boys come through
here six years ago wid a tent show. My papa went off wid the Yankees.
Last I seed of him he was in Memphis. They took my mama off when I was
a baby to Texas to keep the Yankees from gettin' her. My grandma raised
me. We stayed on the big plantation till 1880.
"I don't want no Sociable Welfare help till I ain't able to work. I
don't want none now."
(To be continued) [TR: no continuation found.]
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Augustus Robinson
2500 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born in Calhoun County, Arkansas in 1860, January 15th. I am
going according to what my daddy told me and nothing else. That is all I
could do.
How the Children Were Fed
"My grandmother on my mother's side said when I was a little fellow that
she was a cook and that she would bring stuff up to the cabin where the
little niggers were locked up and feed them through the crack. She would
hide it underneath her apron. She wasn't supposed to do it. All the
little niggers were kept in one house when the old folks were working in
the field. There were six or seven of us.
Sold
"My daddy was a white man, my master. His wife was so mean to me that my
master sold me to keep her from beating me and kicking me and knocking
me 'round. She would have killed me if she could have got the chance. He
[HW: My daddy] sold me to a preacher who raised me as though I were his
own son. Whenever he sat down to the table to eat, I sat down. He made
no difference at all. He raised me in El Dorado, Arkansas. His name was
James Goodwin. He sent me to school too.
Visited by Father
"When Harrison and Cleveland ran for President, my [HW: white] father
came to Little Rock. Some colored people had been killed in the campaign
fights, and he had been summoned to Little Rock to make some statements
in connection with the trouble. He stopped at a prominent hotel and had
me to come to see him. When I went up to the hotel to meet him, there
were a dozen or more white men at that place. When I shook hands with
him, he said, 'Gentlemen, he's a little shady but he's my son.' His name
was Captain I.T. Robinson. He lived in Lisbon, Arkansas.
Mother
"My mother's name was Frances Goodwin. She belonged to Captain Robinson.
I don't know but I think that when they came to Arkansas, they came from
Georgia. They were refugees. When the War started, people that owned
niggers ran from state to state to try to hold their niggers.
House
"I lived right in the yard. We had four houses in the yard and three of
them was made of logs and one was made out of one-by-twelve planks. I
lived in the one made out of planks. It had one big room. I reckon it
was about twenty by fifteen, more than that, I reckon. It was a big
room. There [HW: were] two doors and no windows. We had old candlesticks
for lights. We had old homemade tables. All food was kept in the
smokehouse and the pantry. The food house and the smokehouse were two of
the log cabins in the yard.
Schooling
"Goodwin schooled me. [TR: First sentence lined out.] He had a teacher
to come right on the place and stay there teaching. He raised me and
brought me up just as though I was his own child.
"I remember getting one whipping. I didn't get it from Mr. Goodwin
though. His brother gave it to me. His brother sent me to get a horse.
An old hound was laying in the way on the saddle and the bridle. He
wouldn't move so I picked up the bridle and hit him with it. He hollered
and master's brother heard him and gave me a whipping. That is the only
whipping I ever got when I was small.
Ku Klux
"I heard of the Ku Klux Klan but I don't know that I ever seen them. I
never noticed what effect they had on the colored people. I just heard
people talking about them.
Occupational Experiences
"The first work I did was farming--after the War. I farmed,--down close
to El Dorado, about six miles away from there. I kept that up till I was
about seventeen or eighteen years old or somewheres about there. That
was on James Goodwin's place--my last master, the man who raised me.
Then I left him and came to Little Rock. I don't remember in what year.
I went to school here in Little Rock. I had already had some schooling.
My grandmother sent me. The school I went to was called the Union
School. It was down on Sixth Street. After I left there, I went to
Capitol Hill School. I was going to school during the Brooks-Baxter War.
The statehouse was on Markham Street and Center. My grandmother's name
was Celie Robinson. She went by the name of her owner.
"After I had gone to school several years--I don't remember just how
many--I worked down town about ten or eleven years. Then I went to
railroading. First I was with the Iron Mountain and Southern. Later, it
changed its name to the Missouri Pacific. I worked for them from 1891
to 1935. On August 29th I received my last pay check. I have tried ever
since to get my railroad pension to which my years of service entitle me
but have been unable to get it. The law concerning the pension seems to
have passed on the same day I received my last check, and although I
worked for forty-four years and gave entire satisfaction, there has been
a disposition to keep me from the pension. While in service I had my
jaw broken in two pieces and four front teeth knocked out by a piece of
flying steel.
"Another man was handling the steam hammer. I was standing at my regular
place doing my regular work. When that happened, I was cut down like
a weed. There wasn't a man ever thought they would see me in that job
again after that piece of steel cut me down.
"Also, I lost my right eye in the service when a hot cinder from the
furnace flew in it while I was doing my regular work. Then I was
ruptured because of the handling of heavy pieces of iron at my work. I
still wear the truss. You can see the places where my jaw was broke and
you can see where my teeth were knocked out.
"Out of all the ups and downs, I stuck to the company just the same
until they retired me in 1935 because of old age. The retirement board
wanted to know when I asked for a pension, why did I think I was
entitled to a pension? I told them because I had been injured through
service with the company and had honorably finished so long a period of
service. It is now admitted that I am eligible to a railroad pension but
there seems to still be a delay in paying it for some reason or other.
Support Now
"I get a little assistance from the Welfare, and I get some commodities.
If it wasn't for that, I would be broke up."
[HW: Brooks-Baxter War was about 1872-74.]
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Malindy Robinson
8th Street, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 61
"I was born in Wilkerson County, Mississippi. My ma never was sold, She
said she was eleven years old when peace was declared. Master Sims was
grandma's owner. Grandpa was never sold. He was born in Mississippi. He
was a mulatto man. He was a man worked about the house and grandma was a
field woman. She said she never was whooped but worked mighty hard. They
was good to grandma. She lived in the quarters. My parents b'long to the
same owner. But far as I ever knowed they married long after freedom.
They was raised close to Woodville, Mississippi."
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person interviewed: Tom Robinson
Aged: 88
Home: Lives with his son on outskirts of Hot Springs
As I entered Goldstein Grade school for colored I passed an old
fellow sitting on the sidewalk. There was somthing of that venerable,
dignified, I've-been-a-slave look about him, so much of it that I almost
stopped to question him. Inside I entered a classroom, where a young
woman was in conference with a couple of sheepish youngsters who had
been kept in after school.
Did she know the whereabouts of any ex-slaves? She beamed. Only the
other day an old man had appeared on the school grounds. She appealed to
her charges. Didn't they remember that she had told them about him and
about what slavery had meant. Sheepish looks were gone. They were agog
with interest. Yes 'um, they remembered. But none of the three knew his
name or where to find him.
Another teacher entered the room. No, she couldn't remember the name.
But the old man often came up to watch the children at play. He said it
made him happy to see them getting opportunities he never could have
had. Wait a minute--he might be outside at this very moment. A clatter
of heels and calls of triumph. "Yes! Yes! Here he is!"
Outside I dashed to _drop flat on the sidewalk_[HW:?] beside the
aged man I had passed a few minutes before. Out came my smile and a
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