"I was born in Marshall County, Alabama near Guntersville. Father belong to the Starnes. They bought him in Alabama. My parents' name was Jane and Burrel Starnes. They had two children I knew of. When they was set free they left and started renting. I don't remember much that happened before freedom. I picked up chips and put them in a split basket I just could chin. I'd fill all the baskets and they would haul them up to put under the iron skillet. Other chaps was picking up chips too. They used some kinds to smoke the meat. I could tote water on my head and a bucket in each hand. They was small buckets. We had to come up a path up the hill. I stumped my toe on the rocks till they would bleed; sometimes it looked like the nail would come off. My mother was a good cook. I don't know what she was doing in slavery.
"I been farming all my life. Yes, I owned ninety-eight acres in Alabama. I had a home on it. I lost it. We brought a suit for water damage. We lost it, I reckon. They fixed a dam that ruined my place. I left and went to the North—to Springfield, Ohio. I started public work and worked three or four months in a piano factory. I liked farming the best and come back to it. My boys hope me down hill. I got two boys. My girl left me all I got now. She is dead. I got a home and twenty-five acres of ground. She made the money washing, ironing and farming. I 'plied for the old folks' pension but didn't get it and give it up. I made four bales cotton, one hundred pounds seed cotton. My place is half mile from town. I have to get somebody to do all the work.
"My father did vote. He voted a Republican ticket. I have voted but I don't vote now. I voted a few days ago for a little cotton this year. It was the cotton control election. I voted a Republican ticket. I found out Democrat times is about the best time for us in the South. I quit voting because I'm too old to keep up with it. If a woman owns anything—land or house—she ought to be allowed to vote.
"The times is mighty hard. I need a little money now and I can't get it nowhere. It looks like bad times for me. The young folks don't work hard as I did. I kept study (steady) at farming. I liked it. My race is the best fitted for farming and that is where we belong. I never been in jail. I never been arrested in my whole life."
Interviewer's comment
I stopped this clean, feeble, old Negro—humble as could be—on the edge of town. He had a basket of groceries taking to his old wife. It was a small split basket. His taxes worried him. He couldn't get a holt on any money, so I told him about the Farmers' Loan. He was so scared looking I felt he didn't tell me all he knew. He looked tired. I gave it up and jokingly asked him if he had ever been in jail. He said, "I never been in jail. I never been arrested in my whole life." I laughed good and thanked him. I told a young woman who had curiously been trying to catch the conversation from her yard that I feared I frightened the old man till he couldn't think to tell me all he knew. She said, "Maybe so but he has a reputation of being good as gold and his word his bond."
"What is it you want to know? Well, I was born in North Carolina. I know they brought me here from North Carolina in slavery times. I couldn't keep no count of it, lady, 'cause I didn't know. I know I was big enough to walk behind the wagon pickin' up corn. I know that. That was in slavery times.
"Mr. June Ingraham's father brought me here.
"Oh, that's a long time ago. Mr. June and I was boys together. I was born in the Ingraham family.
"They carried me from here to Texas. I stayed there till I was grown and married. Then I come back to Arkansas I got with Mr. June's son and I been here since.
"Never have gone to school a day. Can't read but I can spell a little.
"I've done most all kinds of work—split rails, cut wood, farm work, and railroad work on the section.
"Ku Klux come out there where I was in Texas. Didn't bother me—they was just around first one place, then another.
"I voted once. I guess it was Republican. I don't remember now who I voted for. I didn't take much interest in politics—only just what I'd hear somebody say.
"Yankees was camped near us in Texas to keep the wild Indians back. That was after the War. Yes'm, sure was.
"I know the very night old missis told us we was free. Called all us slaves up there together. Told us we was just as free as she was. I always will remember that.
"I stayed there till we got through the crop. Then I went to Paris, Texas and portered in a little hotel there. Then I went wagonin'—haulin' stuff.
"They used to whip me in slavery times when they got ready. Need it? well, they said I did. Hurt my feelin's and hurt my hide too, but they raised me to do whatever they said.
"This younger generation ain't no good—they ain't raised up like I was. Things is a whole lot different than they used to be. The folks ain't prayin' to God like they used to. Ain't livin' right.
"I had two brothers killed in time of the War. That's what the old people told me after I come back from Texas.
"Yes'm, I've had plenty to eat all my life—up until now; I ain't got so much now.
"I keep the rheumatism pretty much all the time but I ain't never been down sick so I couldn't help myself.
"I'm telling you just what I know and what I don't know I couldn't tell you. Good-bye."
"Mama was owned by Master Barton. She lived on the line of North Carolina and South Carolina. Her husband was sold away from her and two children. She never seen him no more. Rangments was made with Master Barton to let Master Liege Alexander have her for a cook. Then she went to Old Pickens, South Carolina. Liege Alexander had a white wife and by her he had two girls and a boy. He had a black cook and by her he had two boys and a girl. One of these boys was my papa and I told you the old man bought my mama from Master Barton for his colored son. My papa never was sold you see cause he was the old white man's boy. After his white wife died his two girls married and the boy left Old Pickens, and they told his colored wife and her two boys and girl if they would stay and take care of him as long as he lived they could have the property. My papa went off five or six miles and built him a log house.
"The old man—Master Liege Alexander—was blind when his wife died and he had to be tended to like a child. He would knock his stick on the wall and some of the small children would lead him about where he wanted to go. His white children didn't like the way he had lived so they didn't want to be bothered with him.
"My parents' names was Cheney Barton and Jim Alexander. Papa was medium dark and so was his own brother but their sister was as white as the woman's two girls and boy.
"After the railroads sprung up the town moved to New Pickens.
"Master Liege Alexander had lots of slaves and land. I reckon the white wife's children fell heir to the farm land.
"My aunt and grandma cooked for him till he died. They kept him clean and took care of him like as if his white wife was living. The colored wife and her girl waited on the white wife and her children like queens. That is what papa said.
"Durin' slavery there was stockmen. They was weighed and tested. A man would rent the stockman and put him in a room with some young women he wanted to raise children from. Next morning when they come to let him out the man ask him what he done and he was so glad to get out. Them women nearly kill him. If he said nothin' they wouldn't have to pay for him. Them women nearly kill him. Some of the slave owners rented these stockmen. They didn't let them work in the field and they kept them fed up good.
"Fore the Civil War broke out mama said Master Barton hid a half bushel solid gold and silver coins over the mountains. He had it close to the spring awhile. Mama had to go by it to tote water to the house. She said she never bothered it. He said he could trust her and she wouldn't tell a lie. He took another sack of money over the mountains and the silverware. His wife died during the war. A lot of people died from hearing of the war—heart failure. I don't know what become of his money. He lost it. He may forgot where he hid it. It was after his wife died that he sold mama to Jim Alexander's papa.
"The Yankees rode three years over the country in squads and colored folks didn't know they was free. I have seen them in their old uniforms riding around when I was a child. White folks started talking about freedom fore the darkies and turning them loose with the clothes they had on and what they could tote away. No land, no home, no place; they roamed around.
"When it was freedom the thing papa done was go to a place and start out share croppin'. Folks had no horses or mules. They had to plough new ground with oxen. I ploughed when I was a girl, ploughed oxen. If you had horses or mules and the Yankees come along three or four years after the war, they would swap horses, ride a piece, and if they had a chance swap horses again. Stealing went on during and long after the war.
"The Ku Klux was awful in South Carolina. The colored folks had no church to go to. They gather around at folks' houses to have preaching and prayers. One night we was having it at our house, only I was the oldest and was in another room sound asleep on the bed. There was a crowd at our house. The Ku Klux come, pulled off his robe and door face, hung it up on a nail in the room, and said, 'Where's that Jim Jesus?' He pulled him out the room. The crowd run off. Mama took the three little children but forgot me and run off too. They beat papa till they thought he was dead and throwed him in a fence corner. He was beat nearly to death, just cut all to pieces. He crawled to my bed and woke me up and back to the steps. I thought he was dead—bled to death—on the steps. Mama come back to leave and found he was alive. She doctored him up and he lived thirty years after that. We left that morning.
"The old white woman that owned the place was rich—big rich. She been complaining about the noise—singing and preaching. She called him Praying Jim Jesus till he got to be called that around. He prayed in the field. She said he disturbed her. Mama said one of the Ku Klux she knowed been raised up there close to Master Barton's but papa said he didn't know one of them that beat on him.
"Papa never did vote. I don't vote. I think women should vote much as men. They live under the same law.
"I come to Arkansas about forty-five years ago. Papa brought us to a new country, thought we could do better. I been farming, cooking, washing. I can't do my own cooking and washing now. I got rheumatism in my joints, feet, knees, and hands. We don't get no help of no kind.
"My daughter is in Caldwell, New Jersey at work. She went there to get work. She heard about it and went and haven't come home. I jes' got one child."
I was born right here in Little Rock. My father was owned by a splendid family—the Ashleys. The family of Noah Badgett owned my mother and the children. Pardon me, madam, and I shall explain how that was. In many cases the father of children born in slavery could not be definitely determined. There was never a question about the mother. From this you will understand that the children belonged to the master who owned the mother. This was according to law.
My father's family name was Andrews. How did it happen that it was not Ashley?... Oh, my dear, you have been misinformed about all slaves taking the name of the master who owned them when peace came.... No, madam. My father was named William Wallace Andrews after his father, who was an English gentleman. He had come to Missouri in early days and owned slaves.... Yes, my grandfather was white. The Ashleys brought my father to Arkansas Territory when they came. They always permitted him to keep his family name. Many other masters did the same.
From the standpoint of understanding between the white and colored races, Little Rock has always been a good place to live. The better class families did not speak of their retainers as slaves; they were called servants. Both my parents were educated by their masters. Besides being a teacher and minister my father was a carpenter and expert cabinet worker.
The first school for Negroes in Little Rock was opened in 1863 and was taught by my father. I went to school to him. A few months later there came from the north a company of missionary teachers and opened a school which I attended until 1867. My father was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church for colored people on what is now Eighth and Broadway. He also had a chapel on the property of Mr. Ashley. You probably know that during slavery days the slaves belonged to and attended the same church as their white folks. They sat in the back, or in a balcony built for them. My father was considered the founder of Wesley Chapel, which was Methodist Episcopal. From that time until this day I have been a member of that church. Seventy-three years, I think it is. Before the break came in the Methodist church, you know, it was all the same, north and south. After the division on account of slavery the Methodist church in the south had the word "south" attached. For a long time my father did not realize that. In 1863 he and his church went back into the original Methodist church.
In 1867 the Society of Friends—we called them Quakers—came and erected a large two-story schoolhouse at Sixth and State streets. It was called Union school. When it was built it was said by the Quakers that it was to be for the use of colored children forever, but within a year or two the city bought the property and took charge of the school. As far as I can now recall, white and colored children never did attend the same school in Little Rock. There have always been separate schools for the races. I am able to remember the names of the first teachers in the Quaker school; J.H. Binford was the principal and his sister taught the primary department. Other teachers were Miss Anna Wiles (or Ware), Miss Louise Coffin, Miss Lizzie Garrison, and Sarah Henley.
I was about 11 years old when peace came and was living with my mother and the other children on the Badgett plantation about 7 miles east of Little Rock. Mother did laundry and general house work. Being a small child, all that was asked of me was to run errands and amuse the little white children. Madam, if I could tell you the great difference between slave owners it would help you in understanding conditions of today among the colored people. Both my father and my mother had peculiar privileges. The Ashley family were exceptional slave owners; they permitted their servants to hire their time. There was class distinction, perhaps to greater extent than among the white people. Yes, madam, the slaves who lived in the family with master and mistress were taught just about the same as their own children. At any rate, they imitated them in all matters; to speak with a low voice, use good English, the niceties of manners, good form and courtesy in receiving and attending guests.
I began teaching in Little Rock schools when I was 15 years old and am still teaching. In all, it is 69 years, and my contract is still good. My first experience as a teacher, (as I told you I was fifteen) was by substituting for a teacher in that first Missionary school, in 1869. For some reason, she did not return, and the School Board appointed me in her place. After one year I was given leave of absence to attend Oberlin College in Ohio. I spent three years there, but not in succession. When my money would give out I would come home and the School Board would provide work for me until I could earn enough to carry me through another term. I finished at Oberlin in 1873. I extended my work through courses at Normal schools and Teacher's Institutes. I have taken lecture courses in many colleges, notably the University of California in 1922. I have taught all grades from the first to the twelfth. My principal work, for the last 35 years, however, has been high school Latin and English and Science.
At present I am serving as librarian at the Senior high school and Junior College. I have twice served as principal of city schools in Little Rock. First at Capitol Hill. The Charlotte E. Stephens school at 18th and Maple was named in my honor. I have a book I have kept for 68 years regarding those first schools, and I'm told it is the only one in existence. I also have the first monthly report card ever issued in Little Rock. Mr. Hall (Superintendent of Little Rock City Schools) has asked me to will it to the School Board.
I could recall many interesting events of those early schools for the colored race. Old, old slaves came, desiring to learn to read and spell. They brought the only books they could find, many of which proved to be almanacs, paper bound novels discarded by their mistress and ancient dictionaries, about half of which might be missing.
Yes, madam, I do remember that the emancipated slaves were led to believe they would be given property and have just what their masters had been accustomed to enjoy. I remember hearing my mother tell, in later years, that she really had expected to live as her mistress had; having some one to wait upon her, plenty of money to spend, ride in a carriage with a coachman. But she always added that the emancipated ones soon found out that freedom meant more work and harder than they had ever done before.
What did they work at? Pardon me please for so often reminding you of conditions of that time. Few of the trades workers were white. Brick makers and brick layers, stone masons, lathers, plasters,—all types of builders were of the freed men. You must remember that slaves were the only ones who did this work. Their masters had used their labor as their means of income. Not all slaves were in the cotton fields, as some suppose. The slave owners of towns and villages had their slaves learn skilled trade occupations and made a great deal of money by their earnings. The Yankee soldiers and the many Northern people who lived here hired the freed men and paid them. Quite soon the colored people were buying homes. Many were even hired by their former masters and paid for the work they formerly did without pay under slavery.
I remember Bill Read and Dave Lowe. They had been coachmen before freedom. By combining their first savings, they bought a hack, as it was called. It was more of a cab. For all those who did not have private conveyances, this was the only way of getting about town. It was Little Rock's first taxi-cab business, I should say. Bill and Dave made a fortune; they had a monopoly of business for years and eventually had enough cabs to take the entire population to big evening parties, theater, and all places where crowds would gather.
No, madam, I do not recall that we had any inconvenience from the Ku Klux Klan. If they made trouble in Little Rock I do not now remember it. I did hear that out in the country they drove people from their homes. Yes, madam, I do remember, quite distinctly, the times when colored men were voted into public offices. John C. Corbin was State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Phillips county sent two colored men to the legislature; they were W.H. Gray and H.H. White, both from Helena. J.E. Bush of this city followed M.W. Gibbs as Police Judge. After reconstruction when all colored people were eliminated from public life all these people returned to their trade.
I was 22 when I married. My husband was a teacher but knew the carpenter trade. During the time that Negroes served in public office he served as deputy sheriff and deputy constable. He was with me for 41 years before his death; we raised a family of six children and gave each one a college education.
Now, you have asked my opinion of present conditions of the younger generation. It seems to me they are living in an age of confusion; they seem to be all at sea as to what they should get for themselves. I do know this. In some respects the modern frankness is an improvement over the old suppression and repression in the presence of their elders. At the same time, I think the young people of today lack the proper reverence and respect for age and the experience it brings as a guide for them. During my long years of teaching I have had opportunity to study this question. I am still making a study of the many phases of modern life as it affects the young people. I do not like the trend of amusements of today; I would like for our young people to become interested in things more worth while; in a higher type of amusement. Conditions of morality and a lack of regard for conventions is deplorable. Smoking among the girls has increased the common use of liquor between the sexes.
Did you ask me about the voting restrictions for the colored race in this State? I will tell you frankly that I think the primary law here is unjust; most unjust. We are citizens in every other respect; the primary voting privilege should be ours also. This restriction has been explained as coming down from "the grandfather clause" inserted in early legislation. I cannot give you the exact wording of the clause but the substance was that no person whose ancestor—grandfather—was not entitled to vote before 1863 should have the right to the ballot. Of course it is readily seen that this clause was written purely for the purpose of denying the vote to the colored people.
Perhaps, madam, my talk has been too much along educational lines. You asked me about my life since freedom came and how I have lived to the present time. I have had the blessed privilege of being a teacher—of doing the work I love best of all in the world to do. I have written the story of my life work; it is all ready to be published. I have written "The Story of Negro Schools in Little Rock" and "Memoirs of Little Rock." Madam, I have written, I suppose, what would amount to volumes for our church papers and local Negro newspaper. My daughter was, at one time, editor of the Womens' Page. No, I'm indeed sorry that I have not kept a scrapbook of such writings. In these latter years my friends scold me for having destroyed all the papers as fast as they were read. The most of the news in the articles, however, I have used in the manuscripts of the books I hope to have published.
"I was born in Pleasant Hill, Alabama. My owners were Haley and Missouri Stevens. They owned Grandma Mary. Pa was born on the place. Mother was sold from the Combesses to Stevens. Mother's mother was a Turk Dark Creek Indian. She was a free woman. Her name was Judy. I called her Grandma Judy. She was old but not gray. She had long black hair as I remember her. Mother was named Millie. Haley bought her for my pa. My pa's father was Haley Stevens' own son. He was his coachman. Pa never worked a great deal. Mother never cooked till after emancipation. She was the house girl and nurse. Life moved along smoothly as much as I ever heard till freedom come on. The Indians was independent folks. My mother was like that. Haley Stevens took his family to Texas soon as freedom come on. Mother went with them. They treated her so nicely. Pa wouldn't follow. He said she thought more of them than she did him. He kept me with him. He married again. He was a barber at Selma, Alabama. He died a barber at Anniston, Alabama. While my mother was in Texas she went to see her mother in Hickory, Alabama. She was talking with a tramp. He had helped my pa in the shop at Selma. Mother took the train and come to pa's and my stepmother's house. I was fourteen years old then and still wore a long shirt-like dress. They treated her the nicest kind. She told them she was married to a man named Sims down in Mississippi. She went back. I don't know where. The barber business was a colored man's trade in the early days.
"Soon after freedom I made two trips a day and carried my young mistress' books to school. It was a mile for us to go 'round the road to Pleasant Hill. She married C.C. Williams. I cooked for her. I cooked her daughter's weddin' supper. She had two girls, Maude and Pearl. I worked there fourteen years for my clothes and something to eat. Then I went to myself. When I wasn't cooking I worked in Mr. C.C. Williams' sash and blind factory. They was big rich folks. Mrs. Williams had a hundred rent houses. She went about in her carriage and collected rent. That was at Meridian, Mississippi. They learned me more than an education—to work. She learned me to cook. I cooked all my life. I cooked here at the Rusher Hotel till I got so old I was not able to do the work.
"I do little odd jobs of work where I can find them. I 'plied for the Old Age Pension but they give me commodities and that's all. I supports my own self such as it be.
"I find the young generation don't stick to jobs like I had to do. Seems like they want an education to keep them out of work. Education does some good and some more harm than good. Oh, times! Times is going fast. Well with some I reckon. Some like me is done left. I mean I got slower. Time getting faster. I'm done left outen the game. Time wait for no man."
"My mother's name was Mahala McElroy. Her master's name was Wiley McElroy. She was living in Howard County, Arkansas near Nashville. She worked in the field, and sewed in the house for her mistress. One time she said she never would forget about slavery was a time when she was thirteen years old, and the overseer beat her.
"My mother was a real bright woman with great long black hair. Her master was her father. She told me that the overseer grabbed her by her hair and wound it 'round his arm and then grabbed her by the roots of it and jerked her down to the ground and beat her till the blood ran out of her nose and mouth. She was 'fraid to holler.
"Mother married when she was fourteen. I can't remember the name of her husband. The preacher was an old man, a faith doctor, who read the ceremony. His name was Lewis Hill.
"I heard mother say they beat my brother-in-law (his name was Dave Denver) till he was bloody as a hog. Then they washed him down in salt and water. Then they beat him again because he hollered.
"She told us how the slaves used to try to pray. They were so scared that the overseer would see them that early in the morning while they were going to their work in the field at daybreak that they would fall down on one knee and pray. They were so 'fraid that the overseer would catch them that they would be watching for him with one eye and looking for God with the other. But the Lord understood.
"My mother was seventy years old when she died. She has been dead thirty years."
"I was born in Poplar Grove, Arkansas on Col. Bibbs' place. Mama was sold twice. Once she was sold in Georgia, once in Alabama, and brought to Tennessee, later to Arkansas. Master Ben Hode brought her to Arkansas. She had ten children and I'm the only one living. Mama was a dancing woman. She could dance any figure. They danced in the cabins and out in the yards.
"The Yankees come one day to our house and I crawled under the house. I was scared to death. They called me out. I was scared not to obey and scared to come on out. I come out. They didn't hurt me. Mr. Ben Hode hid a small trunk of money away. He got it after the War. The slaves never did know where it was hid. They said the hair was on the trunk he hid his money in. It was made out of green hide for that purpose.
"Mama had a slave husband. He was a field hand and all kind of a hand when he was needed. Mama done the sewing for white and black on the place. She was a maid. She could cook some in case they needed her. She died first. Papa's foot got hurt some way and it et off. He was so old they couldn't cure it. He was named Alfred Hode. Mama was Viney Hode. She said they had good white folks. They lived on Ben Hode's place two or three years after freedom.
"I farmed, cooked, and ironed all my life. I don't know how to do nothing else.
"I live with my daughter. I got a son."
"I was born la Sparta in Hancock County, Georgia, in January 26, 1866. My father was named William Henry Stith, and I was a little tot less than two years old when my mother died. My father has called her name often but I forget it. I forget the names of my father's father, too, and of mother's people. That is too far back.
"My father was born in 1818. He was born in Georgia. His master was named W.W. Simpson. He had a master before Simpson. Simpson bought him from somebody else. I never can remember the man's name.
Houses
"The first houses I saw in Georgia were frame or brick houses. There weren't any log houses 'round where I was brought up. Georgia wasn't a log house state—leastwise, not the part I lived in. In another part there were plenty of sawmills. That made lumber common. You could get longleaf pine eighty to ninety feet long if you wanted it. Some little towns didn't have no planing mills and you would have to send to Augusta or to Atlanta for the planing work or else they would make planed lumber by hand. I have worked for four and five weeks at a time dressing lumber—flooring, ceiling, siding, moldings, and so on.
"My father was still with Simpson when I remembered anything. At that time the house we lived in was a weatherboarded house just like the ones we live in now. It was a house that had been built since freedom. Old man Simpson sent for my father and told him to build a house for himself on the grounds. My father had been with Simpson for so long and had done so much work for him during slave time that Simpson didn't want to do without him. He supplied all the lumber and materials for my father. During slave time, Simpson had hired my father out to the other planters when he had nothing for him to do in the line of building on his own plantation. He had had him to superintend his grist mill. All that was in slavery time. My father was a highly skilled laborer. He could do a lot of other things besides building. So when freedom came, he wanted my father 'round him still. They both fished and hunted. He wanted my father to go fishing with him and keep him company. My father was a carpenter of the first class, you see, even in slave time. That was all he done. He was brought up to be a carpenter and did nothing but that all his time. My daddy was a mighty good mechanic.
Good Master
"My daddy's master was a very good and kind one. My father was not under any overseer. He worked directly under his master.
"I remember one incident he told me. His master hired a new overseer who hung around for a bit watching my father. Finally, my father asked him, 'Now, what are you able to do?' The overseer answered. 'Why, I can see all over and whip all over, and that's as much as any damn man can do.'
"Nobody was allowed to touch my father. He never had no trouble with the pateroles either. Old man Simpson didn't allow that. He was a free agent. When he wasn't working for Simpson, he was working for the next big farmer, and then the next one, and then the next one, and old man Simpson got wages for his work. Sometimes he worked a contract. Old man Simpson couldn't afford to have him handicapped in his going and coming. He could go whenever he wanted to go, and come back whenever he got ready, with a pass or without one. His time was valuable.
"The reason why so many slaves suffered as much as they did as a rule was not because of the masters but because of the poor white trash overseers. I know of several rich white women that had slaves that wouldn't allow them to be mistreated. They would fire four and five overseers to keep their slaves from being mistreated.
Mean Masters
"But there were some mean masters. I have heard that right there in Georgia there was one white planter—I think it was Brantley---who put one of his slaves that had been unruly in a packing screw and ran it down on him till he mashed him to death. The cotton screw was the thing they pressed cotton bales in. They run it down by steam now, but then, they used to run it down with two mules. They tell a lot of things like that on Brantley. Of course, I couldn't personally know it, but I know he was mighty mean and I know the way he died.
Bushwhacking the Ku Klux
"He belonged to the paterole gang and they went out after the Negroes one night after freedom. The Negroes bushwhacked them and killed four or five of them. They give it out that the men that was killed had gone to Texas. Brantley was one of the killed ones. The pateroles was awful bad at that time. Ku Klux they called them after the War, but they was the same people. I never heard of the Klan part till this thing come up that they have now. They called them Ku Klux back when I was a boy. My stepmother carried me over to Brantley's house the night he got killed. So I know the Texas he went to. That was in '69 or '70. He lived about a mile from us and when he got killed, she carried me over to see him just like we would have gone to see any other neighbor.
"The Negroes were naturally afraid of the Ku Klux but they finally got to the place where they were determined to break it up. They didn't have no ropes, but they would take grapevines and tie them across the road about breast high when a man would be on horseback. The Ku Klux would run against these vines and be knocked off their horses into the road and then the bushwhackers would shoot them. When Ku Klux was killed in this manner, it was never admitted; but it was said that they had gone to Texas. There was several of them went to Texas one night.
Amusements
"There weren't many amusements in slave times. They had dances with fiddle music. There was mighty few darkies could get out to go to dances because the pateroles was so bad after them. I don't know of any other amusements the slaves had. They were playing baseball when I was born. There were boys much older than I was already playing when I was old enough to notice, so I think they must have known about it in slave time. They didn't play much in that way because they didn't have time.
Slaves who Bought Themselves
"I have heard tell of some Negroes that was thrifty and got money enough from side work to buy themselves. They had to go North then because they couldn't live in the South free. I don't remember their names just now.
Church
"The slaves had church. Sometimes they had church at one another's house. I don't think they ever built them a church house. But they could go to the white folks' church if they wanted to.
How Freedom Came
"My daddy's master told my father he was free. He told him that in 1865. He told him that he was free to do as he pleased, that he could come when he pleased and go when he pleased. 'Course, he told him he wanted him to stay around him—not to go off.
Soldiers
"I have heard my father speak of soldiers, but they were too busy 'round Atlanta and up that way to git down where my father was. They don't seem to have bothered his town. They never made my father do any labor in the army neither. My father was mixed Indian, white, and Negro.
Marriage
"Slaves had to get the consent of their masters to marry. Sometimes masters would want them to go and would even buy the woman they wanted to keep them contented on the plantation. Sometimes the masters wouldn't do anything but let them visit. They would marry—what they called marriage in those days—and the husband would have to git permission from his master to go visit his wife and git permission from her master to come there. He would go on Saturday night and get back in time for his work on Monday morning. It was just like raising stock and mating it.
"I have been married fifty-one years. I have been married twice though. My first wife died in 1900. I have been married to my second wife thirty-four years last April. Those were real marriages.
Opinions
"I can't say much along these lines. The chance to make a living looks so dark I can't see much of a future. Things seem to be getting worse. Nearly everybody I talk with, white or colored, seems to think the same. It is like Senator Glass said. 'If Congress would close up and go home at once, times would get better.' People don't know what kind of fool law Congress is going to make and they are not going to spend much money. I don't think Mr. Roosevelt's pump priming will do much good because you must keep adding to it or it will go away.
"I don't think much of the young people. These nineteenth or twentieth century Negroes is something fierce I'm telling you.
Vocational Experiences
"I am a carpenter. I wish I wasn't. The depression has made it so that the Negroes get very little to do. What they have they give to their own people. They don't have much for nobody. Even if the nigger gets something, he gets very little out of it. But the main trouble is there isn't anything to do.
"I have been a carpenter for fifty-four years. I have been here fifty-one years. I have never had no trouble earning a living till now. I can't do it now. The biggest obstacle of the success of the Negro carpenter is that Negroes don't have the money to build with. They must get the money from the white man. The white man, on the other hand, if he lets out the money for the building, has the say-so on who will do it, and he naturally picks out another white man. That keeps the majority of Negroes out of work as far as carpentry is concerned. It does in a time like this. When times is better, the white man does not need to be so tight, and he can divide up."
EX-SLAVES
I was born in Alabama in slavery time. I was sold from my mother after I was five years old and never did see her again. Was sold to a family by the name of Mr. Games. There were six of them in family and I was the seventh. They were very nice to me until I was about 10 years of age. I would attend to the little kids. They were all boys. Had to sleep on straw beds and been cooking for myself ever since I was 8 years old. When about ten they started putting hard work on me and had to pick cotton and do the work around the house. Was a slave for about 15 years. After I was freed I moved to Union County and been here ever since.