Chapter II: Part 2

"The Ku Kluxers never bothered us in the least. I think they worked mostly out in the country. We used to hear terrible tales of how they whipped and killed both white and black, for no reason at all. Everybody was afraid of them and scared to go out after dark. They were a strong organization, and secret. I'll tell you, lady, if the rough element from the north had stayed out of the south the trouble of reconstruction would not happened. Yes ma'am, that's right. You see, after great disasters like fires and earthquakes and such, always reckless criminal class people come in its wake to rob and pillage. It was like that in the war days. It was that bad element of the north what made the trouble. They tried to excite (incite) the colored against their white friends. The white folks was still kind to them what had been their slaves. They would have helped them get started. I know that. I always say that if the south could of been left to adjust itself, both white and colored would been better off.

"Now about this voting business. I guess you don't find any colored folks what think they get a fair deal. I don't, either. I don't think it is right that any tax payer should be deprived of the right to vote. Why, lady, even my children that pay poll tax can't vote. One of my daughters is a teacher in the public school. She tells me they send out notices that if teachers don't pay a poll tax they may lose their place. But still they can't use it and vote in the primary. My husband always believed in using your voting privilege. He has been dead over 30 years. He had been appointed on the Grand Jury; had bought a new suit of clothes for that. He died on the day he was to go, so we used his new suit to bury him in. I have been getting his soldier's pension ever since. Yes ma'am, I have not had it hard like lots of ex-slaves.

"Before you go I'd like you to look at the bedspread I knit last year. My daughters was trying to learn to knit. This craze for knitting has got everybody, it looks like. I heard them fussing about they could not cast on the stitches. 'For land's sakes,' I said, 'hand me them needles.' So I fussed around a little, and it all came back. What's funny about it is, I had not knitted a stitch since I was about ten. Old mistress used to make me knit socks for the soldiers. I remember I knit ten pair out of coarse yarn, while she was doing a couple for the officer out of fine wool and silk mixed. I used to knit pulse warmers, and 'half-handers',--I bet you don't know what they was. Yes, that's right; gloves without any fingers, 'cepting a thumb and it didn't have any end. I could even knit on four needles when I was little. We used to make our needles out of bones, wire, smooth, straight sticks,--anything that would slip the yarn. Well, let me get back to this spread. In a few minutes it all came back. I began knitting washrags. Got faster and faster. Didn't need to look at the stitches. The girls are so scared something will happen to me, they won't let me do any work. Now I had found something I could do. When they saw how fast I work, they say: 'Mother, why don't you make something worth while? Why make so many washrags?' So I started the bedspread. I guess it took me six months, at odd times. I got it done in time to take to Ft. Worth to the big exhibit of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. My daughter was the national president that year. If you'll believe it, this spread took first prize. Look, here's the blue ribbon pinned on yet. What they thought was so wonderful was that I knit every stitch of it without glasses. But that is not so funny, because I have never worn glasses in my life. I guess that is some more of my Indian blood telling.

"Sometimes I have to laugh at some of these young people. I call them young because I knew them when they were babies. But they are already all broken down old men and women. I still feel young inside. I feel that I have had a good life."

--- 11 1938
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: J. N. Gillespie
1112 Park Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75

"I was born near Galveston, in Texas, January 19, 1863, so they tell me. I been in this town and been living right here at 1112 Park Street for fifty-three years and ain't never had no trouble with anybody.

"My grandparents were Gillespie's. My grandma was an Indian woman. She was stolen off the reservation--her and her daughter. The daughter was about twelve years old and big enough to wait table. Both of them were full blooded Cherokee Indians. My grandma married a slave, and when she growed up, my mother married a slave; but my mother's parents were both Indians, and one of my father's parents was white, so you see about three-fourths of me is something else. My grandmother's name before her first marriage was Courtney and my mother's first name was Parthenia.

"When they were stolen, they were made slaves. Nick Toliver bought 'em. He was their first master, far as I heard 'em say. After old man Nick Toliver died, Tom Brewer bought my mother. Toliver and Brewer were the only two masters she had.

"After freedom came, my grandma took back her own name, Gillespie. Grandma's second husband was named Berry Green. She was free and in the Indian reservation when she married Gillespie, but she was a slave when she married Berry Green.

"After my mother came to be of age, she married a man named Willis. He was a slave. That is why I am like I am now. If my grandma had stayed in the nation, I never would have been a slave, and I wouldn't need to be beatin' around here trying to get just bread and meat.

"After freedom, she taken her mother's name by her free husband, Gillespie, and she made her husband take it too. That how I got the name of Gillespie."

Occupation of Forefathers

"After they were made slaves, my grandmother cooked and my mother waited table and worked as a house girl. My grandma used to make clothes too, and she could work on one of these big looms."

Patrollers

"My mother told me that when the boys would go out to a dance, they would tie a rope across the road to make the horses of the patrollers stumble and give the dancers time to get away. Sometimes the horses' legs would be broken."

Subject's Occupation

"I wants to work and can't get work; so they ain't no use to worry. I used to cook. That is all I did for a living. I cooked as long as I could get something for it. I can't get a pension."

Slave Houses

"I didn't see no log houses when I growed up. Everything was frame."

Right After the War

"Right after the War, my mother stayed around the house and continued to work for her master. I don't know what they paid her. I can't remember just how they got free but I think the soldiers gave 'em the notification. They stayed on the place till I was big enough to work. I didn't do no work in slave time because I wasn't old enough."

Choked on Watermelon Seeds

"One day I was stealing watermelons with some big boys and I got choked on some seeds. The melon seeds got in my throat. I yelled for help and the boys ran away. Old Tom Brewer made me get on my hands and jump up and down to get the seeds out."

Leaving Galveston

"I was a small boy, might have been seven or eight years old, when I left Galveston. We came to Bradley County, here in Arkansas. From Bradley my mother took me to Pine Bluff. After I got big I went back to Texas. Then I came from Texas here fifty-three years ago, and have been living here ever since, cooking for hotels and private families.

"I never was arrested in my life. I never been in trouble. I never had a fight. Been living in the same place ever since I first came here--right here at 1112 Park Street. I belong to the Christian Church at Thirteenth and Cross Streets. I quit working around the yard and the building because they wouldn't pay me anything. They promised to pay me, but they wouldn't do it."

Interviewer's Comment

Gillespie has an excellent reputation, as indeed have most of the ex-slaves in this city. He is clear and unfaltering in his memory. He is deliberate and selects what he means to tell. He is never discourteous. He is a little nervous and cannot be held long at a time. Indian characteristics in him are not especially prominent, but you note them readily after learning of his ancestry. He is brown but slightly copper in color, and his profile has the typical Indian appearance. He is a little taciturn, and sometimes acts on his decisions before he announces them. I cultivated him about three weeks.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Will Glass
715 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 50
Occupation: All phases of paving work
[HW: [Bit Dog's Foot Off]]

"My grandfather was named Joe Glass. His master was named Glass. I forget the first name. My grandfather on my mother's side was named Smith. His old master was named Smith. The grandfather Joe was born in Alabama. Grandfather Smith was born in North Carolina."

Whippings

"There were good masters and mean masters. Both of my old grandfathers had good masters. I had an uncle, Anderson Fields, who had a tough master. He was so tough that Uncle Anderson had to run away. They'd whip him and do around, and he would run away. Then they would get the dogs after him and they would run him until he would climb a tree to get away from them. They would come and surround the tree and make him come down and they would whip him till the blood ran, and sometimes they would make the dogs bite him and he couldn't do nothing about it. One time he bit a dog's foot off. They asked him why he did that and he said the dog bit him and he bit him back. They whipped him again. They would take him home at night and put what they called the ball and chain on him and some of the others they called unruly to keep them from running away.

"They didn't whip my grandfathers. Just one time they whipped Grandfather Joe. That was because he wouldn't give his consent for them to whip his wife. He wouldn't stand for it and they strapped him. He told them to strap him and leave her be. He was a good worker and they didn't want to kill him, so they strapped him and let her be like he said."

Picnics

"Both of my grandfathers said their masters used to give picnics. They would have a certain day and they would give them all a good time and let them enjoy themselves. They would kill a cow or some kids and hogs and have a barbecue. They kept that up after freedom. Every nineteenth of June, they would throw a big picnic until I got big enough to see and know for myself. But their masters gave them theirs in slavery times. They gave it to them once a year and it was on the nineteenth of June then.

"Grandfather Joe said when he wanted to marry Jennie, she was under her old master, the man that Anderson worked under. Old man Glass found that Grandfather Joe was slipping off to old man Field's to see Grandma Jennie, who was on Field's place, and old man Fields went over and told Glass that he would either have to sell Glass to him or buy Jennie from him. Old man Glass bought Jennie and Grandfather Joe got her.

"After old man Glass bought Jennie, he held up a broom and they would have to jump over it backwards and then old man Glass pronounced them man and wife.

"Grandfather Joe died when I was a boy ten years old. Grandfather Smith died in 1921. He was eighty years old when he died. Grandfather Joe was seventy-two years old when he died. He died somewhere along in 1898."

Whitecaps

"I heard them speak of the Ku Klux often. But they didn't call them Ku Klux; they called them whitecaps. The whitecaps used to go around at night and get hold of colored people that had been living disorderly and carry them out and whip them. I never heard them say that they whipped anybody for voting. If they did, it wasn't done in our neighborhood."

Worship

"Uncle Anderson said that old man Fields didn't allow them to sing and pray and hold meetings, and they had to slip off and slip aside and hide around to pray. They knew what to do. People used to stick their heads under washpots to sing and pray. Some of them went out into the brush arbors where they could pray and shout without being disturbed.

"Grandfather Joe and Grandfather Smith both said that they had seen slaves have that trouble. Of course, it never happened on the plantations where they were brought up. Uncle Anderson said that they would sometimes go off and get under the washpot and sing and pray the best they could. When they prayed under the pot, they would make a little hole and set the pot over it. Then they would stick their heads under the pot and say and sing what they wanted."

Slave Sales

"Grandfather Joe and Grandfather Smith used to say that when a child was born if it was a child that was fine blooded they would put it on the block and sell it away from its parents while it was little. Both of my grandfathers were sold away from their parents when they were small kids. They never knew who their parents were.

"When my oldest auntie was born, my mother said she was sold about two years before freedom. Aunt Emma was only two years old then when she was sold. Mother never met her until she was married and had a family. They would sell the children slaves of that sort at auction, and let them go to the highest bidder."

Opinions

"My grandfather brought me up strictly. I don't know what they thought about the young people of their day, but I know what I think. I will tell you. At first I searched myself. Kids in the time I came along had to go by a certain rule. They had to go by it.

"We don't see to our children doing right as our parents saw to our doing. It would be good if we could get ourselves together and bring these young people back where they belong. What ruined the young folks is our lack of discipline. We send them to school but that is all, and that is not enough. We ought to take it on ourselves to see that they are learning as they ought to learn and what they ought to learn.

"I belong to Bethel A. M. E. Church. I married about 1919, November 16. I have just one kid and two grand kids."

--- 13 1937
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Frank William Glenn
Des Arc, Arkansas
Age: 73

"I was born June 1864 in Des Arc. My parents named Richard Lewis Glenn and Pleasant Glynn. My mama died when I was small. I recollect hearing em say the southern women oughtn't marry the Yankee men, there was so much difference in their lives. A few widows and girls did marry Yankee men, very few. Southern folks jes' hated em.

"Master Wash Glenn had a son named Boliver. He may had more. I don't know much about em. We stayed there after the war for a long time then went to work for Mr. Bedford Bethels father. We worked there a long time then went to work for Mr. Jim Erwin. My papa always farmed. I heard my mama say she washed and sewed during slavery. There was three boys and one girl in our famlee. I heard bout the bushwhackers and Ku Klux. I was too young to tell bout what they did do. I never did see none dressed up.

"I don't fool wid votin' much. I have voted. I don't understand votin' much and how they run the govermint. My time of usefulness is nearly gone.

"The present time serves me hard. I got my leg caught in a wagon wheel and so sprained I been cripple ever since. The rheumatiz settles in it till I can't sleep at night. My wife quit me. I got two boys in Chicago, the girl and her ma in Brinkley. They sho don't help me. I have to rent my house. I don't own nuthin'. I work all I'm able.

"The present generation is selfish and restless. I don't know what goner become of em. Times is changing too fast for me. I jess look on and wonder what going to come on next."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ella Glespie
Brassfield, Arkansas
Age: 71

"I was born the third year after the surrender. I was born in Okolona, Mississippi. My parents was Jane Bowen and Henry Harrison. Ma had seven children. They lived on the Gates place at freedom. I'm the onliest one of my kin living anywheres 'bout now. Ma never was sold but pa was.

"Parson Caruthers brought pa from Alabama. He was a good runner and when he was little he throwd his hip outer j'int running races. Then Parson Caruthers learnt him a trade--a shoemaker. When he was still nothing but a lad he was sold for quite a sum of money. When emancipation come on he could read and write and make change.

"So den he was out in the world cripple. He started teaching school. He had been a preacher, too, durin' slavery. He preached and taught school. He was justice of the peace and representative for two terms from Chickasaw County in the state legislature. I heard them talk about that and when I started to school Mr. Suggs was the white man principal. Pa was one teacher and there was some more teachers. He was a teacher a long time. He was eighty odd and ma was sixty odd when she died. Both died in Mississippi.

"My folks said Master Gates was good. I knowd my pa's young Master Gates. Pa said he never got a whooping. They made a right smart of money outen his work. He said some of the boots he made brung high as twenty dollars. Pa had a good deal of Confederate bills as I recollects. Ma said some of them on Gates' place got whoopings.

"When they would be at picnics and big corn shellings or shuckings either, all Gates' black folks was called 'Heavy Gates'; they was fed and treated so well. I visited back at home in Mississippi. Went to the quarters and all nineteen years ago. I heard them still talking about the 'Heavy Gates'. I was one the offspring.

"Ma cooked for her old mistress years and years. Mrs. Rogers in South Carolina give ma to Miss Rebecca, her daughter, and said, 'Take good care of her, you might need her.' They come in ox wagons to Mississippi. Ma was a little girl then when Miss Rebecca married Dr. Bowen. Ma hated to leave Miss Rebecca Bowen 'cause in the first place she was her half-sister. She said Master Rogers was her own pa. Her ma was a cook and house girl ahead of her. Ma was a fine cook. Heap better than I ever was 'cause she never lacked the stuff to fix and I come short there.

"I heard ma tell this. Wherever she lived and worked, at Dr. Bowen's, I reckon. The soldiers come one day and took their sharp swords from out their belts and cut off heads of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, guineas, and took a load off and left some on the ground. They picked up the heads and what was left and made a big washpot full of dumplings. She said the soldiers wasted so much.

"When I was young I seen a 'style block' at Holly Springs, Mississippi. I was going to Tucker Lou School, ten miles from Jackson. That was way back in the seventies. A platform was up in the air under a tree and two stumps stood on ends for the steps. It was higher than three steps but that is the way they got up on the platform they tole me.

"I think times are a little better. I gits a little ironing and six dollars and commodities. The young generation is taking on funny ways. I think they do very well morally 'cepting their liquor drinking habits. That is worse, I think. They are advancing in learning. I think times a little better.

"My husband had been out here. We married and I come here. I didn't like here a bit but now my kin is all dead and I know folks here better. I like it now very well. He was a farmer and mill man."

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Joe Golden
Age: 86
Home: 722 Gulpha Street, Hot Springs, Ark.

"Yes, ma'am to be sure I remembers you. I knew your father and all his brothers. I knew your mother's father and your grandmother, and all the Denglers. Your grandpappy was mighty good to me. Your grandmother was too. Many's the day your uncle Fred followed me about while I was hunting. I was the only one what your grandpappy would let hunt in his garden. Yes, ma'am! If your grandmother would hear a shot across the hill in the garden, she'd say, 'Go over and see who it is.' And your grandfather would come. He'd chase them away. But if it was me, he'd go back home and he'd tell her, 'It's just Joe. He's not going to carry away more than he can eat. Joe'll be all right.'

"Yes, ma'am. I was born down at Magnet Cove. I belonged to Mr. Andy Mitchell. He was a great old man, he was. Did he have a big farm and lots of black folks? Law, miss, he didn't have nothing but children, just lots of little children. He rented me and my pappy and my mother to the Sumpters right here in Hot Springs.

"I can remember Hot Springs when there wasn't more than three houses here. Folks used to come thru and lots of folks used to stay. But there wasn't more than three families lived here part of the time.

"Yes, ma'am we worked. But we had lots of fun too. Them was exciting times. I can remember when folks got to shooting at each, other right in the street. I run off and taken to the woods when that happened.

"No, miss, we didn't live in Hot Springs all thru the war. When the Federals taken Little Rock they taken us to Texas. We stayed there until '68. Then we come back to Hot Springs.

"Yes, miss, Hot Springs was a good place to make money. Lots of rich folks was coming to the hotels. Yes, ma'am, I made money. How'd I make it? Well lots of ways. I used to run. I was the fastest runner what was. Folks would bet on us, and I'd always win. Then I used to shine shoes. Made money at it too. Lots of days I made as much as $4 or $5. Sometimes I didn't even stop to eat. But I was making money, and I didn't care.

"Then there was a feller, a doctor he was. He give me a gun. I used to like to hunt. Hunted all over these mountains[1], hunted quail and hunted squirrel and a few times I killed deers. The man what gave me the gun he promised me twenty five cents apiece for all the quail I could bring him. Lots of times I came in with them by the dozen.

"I tried to save my money. Didn't spend much. I'd bring it home to my mother. She'd put it away for me. But if my pappy knowed I got money he'd take it away from me and buy whiskey. You might know why, miss. He was part Creek--yes ma'am, part Creek Indian.

"Does you remember chinquapins? They used to be all over the hill up yonder.[1] I used to get lots of them. Sell them too. One time I chased a deer up there[1]. Got him with a knife, didn't have a gun. The dogs cornered him for me. Best dog I ever had, his name was Abraham Lincoln. He was extra good for a possom dog. Once I got a white possom in the same place I got a deer. It was way out yonder--that place there ain't nothing but rocks. Yes, ma'am, Hell's Half Acre.[2]

"Yes, miss, I has made lots of money in my time. Can't work none now. Wish you had got to me three years ago. That was before I had my stroke. Can't think of what I want to say, and can't make my mouth say it. You being patient with me. I got to take time to think.

"Me and my wife we gets along pretty well. We have our home, and then I got other property.[3] We was real well off. I had $1200 in the bank--Webb's Bank when it failed.[4] Never got but part of my money back.

"When I sold out my bootblack stand I bought a butcher shop. I made a lot of money there. I had good meat and folks, black folks and white folks came to buy from me. So you remembers my barbecue, do you? Yes, miss, I always tried to make it good. Yes, I remembers your pappy used to always buy from me.

"Your grandmother was a good woman. I remember when your Uncle Freddy had been following me around all day while I was hunting--it was in your grandpappy's garden--his vineyard too--it was mighty big. I told Freddy he could have a squirrel or a quail. He took the squirrel and I gave him a couple of quail too. Went home with him and showed your grandmother how they ought to be fixed.

"I can remember before your father lived in Hot Springs. He and his brothers used to come thru from Polk County. They'd bring a lot of cotton to sell. Yes, ma'am lots of folks came thru. They'd either sell them here or go on to Little Rock. Lots of Indians--along with cotton and skins they'd bring loadstone. Then when your pappy and his brothers had a hardware store I bought lots of things from them. Used to be some pretty bad men in Hot Springs--folks was mean in them days. I remember when your father kept two men from killing each other. Wish, I wish I could remember better. This stroke has about got me.

"Yes, miss, that was the garden. I used to sell garden truck too. Had a bush fence around it long before a wire one. Folks used to pass up other folks to buy truck from me. Your mother did.

"Life's been pretty good to me. I've lived a long time. And I've done a lot. Made a lot of money, and didn't get beyond the third grade.[5] Can't cultivate the garden now. My wife does well enough to take care of the yard. She's a good woman, my wife is.

"So you're going to Fayetteville to see Miss Adeline? I remember Miss Adeline.[6] She worked for your pappy's brother didn't she. Yes, I knowed her well. I liked her.

"Yes miss, I'm sort of tired. It's hard to think. And I can't move about much. But I got my home and I got my wife and we're comfortable. Thank you."

Interviewer's note:

I left him sitting and rocking gently in a home-made hickory stationary swing eyes half closed looking out across his yard and basking in the warm sunshine of late afternoon.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Units of Hot Springs National Park.

[2] Spot without soil or vegetation--broken talus rock.

[3] Home clean, well painted and cared for, two story, large lot. Rental cottage, good condition, negro neighborhood.

[4] Bank owned and operated for and by negroes--affiliated with headquarters of large national negro lodge.

[5] No public schools in Hot Springs until the late 70s.

[6] The Adeline Blakely of another Arkansas interview with slaves.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jake Goodridge
Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: 97? 87 is about correct
Born August 4, 1857

"I was born close to Jackson, Tennessee in Madison County. My master was Hatford Weathers. His wife's name was Susan Weathers. They had a big family--John, Lidy, Mattie, Polly, Betty, and Jimmy, that I recollect and there might er been some more.

"My parents' names was Narcissus and Jacob Goodridge. I had one brother that was a Yankee soldier, and five sisters. One sister did live in Texas. They all dead fur as I know. We got scattered. Some of us got inherited fore freedom. Jake Goodridge took me along when he went to the army to wait on him. Right there it was me an' my brother fightin' agin one 'nother.

"When we come to St. Charles we come to Memphis on freight boxes--no tops--flat cars like. There a heap more soldiers was waiting. We got on a boat--a great big boat. There was one regiment--Indiana Cavalry, one Kansas, one Missouri, one Illinois. All on deck was the horses. There was 1,200 men in a regiment and four regiments, 4,800 horses and four cannons. There was not settin' down room on the boat. They captured my master and sent him to prison. First they put him in a callaboose and then they sent him on to prison and they took me to help them. They made a waitin' boy of me. I didn't lack none of 'em. They cussed all the time. I heard they paroled my master long time after the war.

"They would shoot a cannon, had a sponge on a long rod. They wipe it out and put in another big ball, get way back and pull a rope. The cannon fire agin. Course I was scared. I was scared to death bout two years, that 'bout how long I was in the war. I was twelve or fourteen years old. I recollect it as well as if it was yesterday. They never had a battle at St. Charles while I was there. They loaded up the boat and took us to Little Rock. They mustered out there. The Yankee soldiers give out news of freedom. They was shouting 'round. I jes' stood around to see whut they goiner do next. Didn't nobody give me nuthin'. I didn't know what to do. Everything going. Tents all gone, no place to go stay and nothin' to eat. That was the big freedom to us colored folks. That the way white folks fightin' do the colored folks. I got hungry and naked and cold many a time. I had a good master and I thought he always treated me heap better than that. I wanted to go back but I had no way. I made it down to St. Charles in 'bout a year after the surrender. I started farmin'. I been farmin' ever since. In Little Rock I found a job in a tin pin alley, pickin' up balls. The man paid me $12 a month, next to starvation. I think his name was Warren Rogers.

"I went to Indian Bay 'bout 1868 and farmed for Mr. Hathway, then Mr. Duncan. Then I come up to Clarendon and been here ever since.

"One time I owned 40 acres at Holly Grove, sold it, spent the money.

"I too old, I don't fool wid no votin'. I never did take a big stock in sich foolishness.

"I live wid my daughter and white folks. The Welfare give me $8 a month. We got a garden. No cow. No hog. No chickens.

"The present conditions seem pretty bad. Some do work and some don't work. Nobody savin' that I sees. Takes it all to live on. I haben't give the present generation a thought."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John Goodson (Goodrum)
Des Arc, Arkansas
Age: Born in 1865

"My master was Bill Goodrum. I was born at Des Arc out in the country close by here. My mother was a house woman and my father was overseer. I was so little I don't remember the war. I do remember Doc Rayburn. I seed him and remember him all right. He was a bushwacker and a Ku Klux they said. I don't remember the Ku Klux. Never seed them.

"I heard my parents say they expected the government to divide up the land and give them a start--a home and some land. They got just turned out like you turn a hog out the pen and say go on I'm through wid you.

"I heard them set till midnight talking 'bout whut all took place during the Civil War. The country was wild and it was a long ways between the houses. There wasn't many colored folks in this country till closin' of the war. They started bringing 'em here. Men whut needed help on the farms.

"All my life I been cooking. I cooked at hotels and on boats. I cooked some in restaurants. They say it was the heat caused me to go blind. I cooked up till 1927. The last folks I cooked for was on a boat for Heckles and Wade Sales up at Augusta, Arkansas. I done carpentry work some when I was off of a cooking job. I never liked farmin' much. I have done a little of that along between times too. My main job is cooking.

"I voted along when I could see. I ain't voted lately. I sho lacks this President.

"I had a house and lot--this one, but I couldn't pay taxes. We still living in it. We got a garden. No hog, no cow. We made our home when I cooked and my wife washed and ironed.

"I think this new generation of colored folks is awful. They can get work if they would do it. Times is gettin' worse. They work some if the price suit 'em, if it don't, they steal. They spend 'bout all they make for shows, whiskey and I don't know whut all.

"The Social Welfare gives me $8 a month. My wife does all the washing and ironin' she can get. We are doing very well.

"I don't understand much 'bout votin' and picking out canidates. It don't hurt if the women want to vote.

"Only songs I ever heard was corn songs. I don't remember none. They make 'em up out in the fields. Some folks good at making up songs. One I used to hear a whole heap was 'It goiner be a hot time in the old time tonite.' Another one 'If you liker me liker I liker you. We both liker the same.' I don't remember no more them songs. I used to hear 'em a whole lots. Yes out in the fields."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Pages 58 to 62 have been withdrawn after numbering.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: George Govan
Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 52

"George Govan is my name, and I was born in Conway County somewheres in December 1886--I guess it was about de seventeenth of December. We lived there till 1911, when I come to Pope County. Both my parents was slaves on de plantation of a Mr. Govan near Charleston, South Carolina. Dat's where we got our name. Folks come to Arkansas after dey was freed. No sir, I ain't edicated--never had de chance. Parents been dead a good many years.

"Yas suh, my folks used to talk a heap and tell me lots of tales of slavery days, and how de patrollers used to whip em when dey wanted to go some place and didn't have de demit to go. Yas suh, dey had to have a demit to go any place outside work hours. Dey whipped my mother and father both sometimes, and dey sure was afraid of dem patrollers. Used to say, 'If you don't watch out de patrollers'll git you.' Dey'd catch de slaves and tie em up to a tree or a pos' and whip em wid buggy whips and rawhides.

"Some of de slaves was promised land and other things when dey was freed, and some wasn't promised nothin'. Some got land and a span of mules, and some didn't get nothin'. No suh, my daddy didn't farm none at first after he was freed because he didn't have no money to buy land, but he done odd jobs here and there till he come to Arkansas seven or eight years after the War.

"Yes, I owns my own home; been livin' in it for ten years, since I've been workin' as janitor at dis Central Presbyterian Church. I belongs to de Missionary Baptis' Church, but my parents were both Methodists.

"Sure did have lots of good songs in de old days, like 'Old Ship of Zion' and 'On Jordan's Stormy Banks.' Used to have one that begins 'Those that 'fuse to sing never knew my God.' It was a purty piece; and then there was another one about a 'Rough, rocky road.'

"De young people today has much better opportunities than when I was a child, and much better than dey had in slavery days, because dar ain't no patrollers to whip em. Most of em dese days has purty good behavior, and I think dey're better than in de old days.

"I has always voted regularly since I come of age--votes de Republican ticket. Can't read but a little, but I never had any trouble about votin'."

NOTE: George Govan is an intelligent Negro, fairly neat in his dress, very tall and erect in stature. Brogue quite noticeable, and occasional idioms that make his interview interesting and personal.

#712
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Julia Grace
819 N. Spruce Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 75

"I was seventy-four this last past fourth of July. I was born in Texas. My mother was sent to Texas to keep from bein' freed.

"Ad March and Spruce McCrary is the onliest white folks I remember bein' with. I don't know whether they was our owners or not.

"My father was sent to North Carolina and I never did see him no more.

"After freedom they brought us back here from Texas and we worked on the McCrary plantation.

"In slavery days mama said she and my father stayed in the woods most of the time. That's when they was whippin' 'em.

"My mother come from Richmond, Virginia. Petersburg was her town. She belonged to the Wellses over there.

"After her master got his leg broke, the rest was so mean to her she run off a couple times, so they sold her. Put her up on the tradin' block--like goin' to make a speech. Stripped 'em naked. The man bid 'em off like you'd bid off oxen.

"Mama told me her missis, after her husband died, got so mean to her she run off till her old missis sold her. They weighed 'em and stripped 'em naked to see if they was anything wrong with 'em and how they was built and then bid 'em off.

"Mama said she never would a been in Arkansas if they hadn't been so mean to her. They were too compulsive on 'em--you know, hard taskmasters.

"After freedom Ad March went back to North Carolina and Spruce McCrary come here to Pine Bluff.

"Fust time I moved here in town was in 1888. I stayed ten months, then I went back to the country. I aimed to go to Fort Smith but I got to talkin' with my playmates and I didn't have too much money, and I stayed till I didn't have enough money left to keep me till I could get a job. So I stayed here and worked for Mrs. Freemayer till I got so I couldn't work. She's the one got me on this relief.

"I went to school one session in 1886. Sam Caeser, he was a well-known teacher. He got killed here in Pine Bluff.

"I can't sweep and I can't iron. I got a misery in my back. I washes my clothes and spreads 'em out till they dry. Then I puts 'em on and switches into church and ever'body thinks they has been ironed.

"They ain't but one sign I believes in and that's peckerwoods. Just as sure as he pecks three times, somebody goin' to move or somebody goin' to die. Just as sure as you live somebody goin' out.

"One time one of my grandchildren and a friend of mine was walkin' through the woods and we missed the main road we aimed to ketch, and we got into a den of wild hogs. I said, 'Lord, make 'em stand still till we get out of here.' One of 'em was that tall and big long ears hung down over his eyes. That was the male, you know. I reckon they couldn't see us and we walked as easy as we could and we got away and struck the main road. I reckon if they could a seen us we would a been 'tacked but we got away. I had heard how they made people take to trees, and I was scared.

"Have you ever seen a three-legged cow? Well, I have. I looked at her good. She was grown and had a calf."

--- 11 1938
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Charles Graham
616 W. 27th Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 79
[HW: [Freed in '63]]

"I was born September 27, 1859, Clarksville, Tennessee. I don't remember the county. There are several Clarksvilles throughout the South. But Clarksville, Tennessee is the first and the oldest.

"I got a chance to see troops after the Civil War was over. The soldiers were playing, boxing, and the like. Then I remember hearing the cannons roar--long toms they used to call 'em. My uncle said, 'That is General Grant opening fire on the Rebels.'

"The first clear thing I remember was when everybody was rejoicing because they were free. The soldiers were playing and boxing and chucking watermelons at one another. They had great long guns called muskets. I heard 'em say that Abraham Lincoln had turned 'em loose. Where I was at, they turned 'em loose in '63. Lincoln was assassinated in '65. I heard that the morning after it was done. We was turned loose long before then.

"I was too young to pay much attention, but they were cutting up and clapping their hands and carrying on something terrible, and shouting, 'Free, free, old Abraham done turned us loose.'

"I was here in them days! Heard those long toms roar! General Grant shelling the Rebels!"

Patrollers

"I don't remember much about the patrollers except that when they been having dances, and some of them didn't have passes, they'd get chased and run. If they would get catched, them that didn't have passes would get whipped. Them that had them, they were all right."

Amusements

"They had barbecues. That's where the barbecues started from, I reckon, from the barbecues among the slaves.

"They would have corn shuckings. They would have a whole lot of corn to shuck, and they would give the corn shucking and the barbecue together. They would shuck as many as three or four hundred bushels of corn in a night. Sometimes, they would race one another. So you know that they must have been some shucking done.

"I don't believe that I know of anything else. People were ignorant in those days and didn't have many amusements."

Occupations

"I used to be a regular miller until they laid the men off. Now I don't have no kind of job at all."

Right after the War

"Some of the slaves went right up North. We stayed in Clarksville and worked there for a year or two. In 1864, we went to Warren County, Illinois. They put me in school. My people were just common laborers. They bought themselves a nice little home.

"My mother's name was Anna Bailis and my father's name was Charles Morrill. I don't remember the names of their masters.

"I was raised by my uncle, Simon Blair. His master used to be a Bailis. My father, so I was told, went off and left my mother. She was weak and ailing, so my uncle took me. He took me away from her and carried me up North with them. My father ran away before the slaves were freed. I never found out what became of him.

"I stayed in Illinois from the time I was five or six years old up until I was twenty-one. I left there in 1880. That is about the time when Garfield ran for President. I was in Ohio, seen him before he was assassinated in 1882. Garfield and Arthur ran against Hancock and English. They beat 'em too."

Little Rock

"I used to go from place to place working first one place and then another--going down the Mississippi on boats. Monmouth, Illinois, where I was raised--they ain't nothing to that place. Just a dry little town!"

Opinions

"The young people nowadays are all right. There is not so much ignorance now as there was in those days. There was ignorance all over then. The Peckerwoods wasn't much wise either. They know nowadays though. Our race has done well in refinement.

"I find that the Negro is more appreciated in politics in the North and West than in the South. I don't know whether it will grow better or not.

"I'll tell you something else. The best of these white people down here don't feel so friendly toward the North."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Graham
408 Maple Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75
[HW: ["Free Negroes"]]

"I was born in South Carolina, Lancaster County, about nine miles from Lancaster town. My father's name was Tillman Graham and my mother's name was Eliza.

"I have seen my grandfathers, but I forget their names now. My father was a farmer. My father and mother belonged to this people, that is, to the Tillmans.

"On my father's side, they called my people free Negroes because they treated them so good. On my mother's side they had to get their education privately. When the white children would come from school, my mother's people would get instruction from them. My mother was a maid in the house and it was easy for her to get training that way."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Marthala Grant
2203 E. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 77

"All I can remember is some men throwin' us up in the air and ketchin' us, me and my baby brother. Like to scared me to death. They had on funny clothes. Me and my brother was out in the yard playin'. They just grabbed us up and throwed us up and ketched us.

"My mother would tell us bout the war. She had on some old shoes--wooden shoes. Her white folks name was Hines. That was in North Carolina. I emigrated here when they was emigratin' folks here. I was grown then.

"Durin' the war I heered the shootin' and the people clappin' their hands.

"My mother said they was fightin' to free the people but I didn't know what freedom was. I member hearin' em whoopin' and hollerin' when peace was 'clared and talkin' bout it.

"Yes'm I went to school some--not much. I learned a right smart to read but not much writin'.

"We'd go up to the white folks house every Sunday evenin' and old mistress would learn us our catechism. We'd have to comb our heads and clean up and go up every Sunday evenin'. She'd line us up and learn us our catechism.

"We stayed right on there after the war. They paid my mother. I picked cotton and nussed babies and washed dishes.

"I was married when I was twenty. Never been married but once and my husband been dead nigh bout twenty years."

"When I come here this town wasn't much--sure wasn't much. Used to have old car pulled by mules and a colored man had that--old Wiley Jones. He's dead now.

"I had eleven childen. All dead but five. My boy what's up North went to that Spanish War. He stayed till peace was declared.

"After we come to Arkansas my husband voted every year and worked the county roads. I guess he voted Republican.

"I can't tell you bout the younger generation. They so fast you can't keep up with them. I really can't tell you."

#731
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Wesley Graves
817 Hickory Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 70
[HW: [Father Taught Night School]]

"My father's white folks were named Tal Graves. My mother was a McAdoo. Her white folks were McAdoos. Some of them are over the river now. He's a great jewelryman now.

"I was born in Trenton, Tennessee. My father was born 'round in Humboldt, Tennessee. My mother was born in Paris, Tennessee and moved out in the country near Humboldt. He met my mother out there and married her just a little bit before the War. He was a slave and she was too.

"He didn't go to the War; he went to the woods. He got to chasing 'round. His young mistress married. She married a Graves. That was the name we was freed under. She was a Shane.

"She educated my father. When she come from school, she would teach him and just carry him right on through the course that way. That was a good while before the War. Her father gave him to her when she married Graves. He was a little boy and she kept him and educated him. Graves ran a farm. I don't know just what my father did when he was little. He was raised up as a house boy. Very little he ever done in the field. I don't know what he did after he grew up and before freedom came. After peace was declared, he taught in night school. He preached too. His first farming was done a little after he come out here. I was about seven years old then. That was in the year 1873.

"My mother's full name was Adeline McAdoo. Before freedom she did housework. She was a kind a pet with the white folks. She didn't do much farming. My mother and father had six children--five boys and one girl. All born after freedom. There were three ahead of me. The oldest was born before the War, not afterward.

"In my country where I was raised the Negroes weren't freed until 1865. My uncle, Jim Shane--that is the only name I ever knew him by--, he ran away and come to this country and made money enough to come back and buy his freedom. Just about time he got himself paid for, the War closed and he would have been freed anyway. The money wouldn't have done him no good anyhow because it was all Confederate money, and when the War closed, that wasn't no good.

"My father ran away when the War broke out. His master wanted to carry him to the army with him and he run off and stayed in the woods three years. He stayed until his little mistress wrote him a letter and told him she would set him free if he would come home. He stayed out till the War closed. He wouldn't take no chances on it.

"The pateroles made my father do everything but quit. They got him about teaching night school. That was after slavery, but the pateroles still got after you. They didn't want him teaching the Negroes right after the War. He had opened a night school, and he was doing well. They just kept him in the woods then."

Ku Klux