United States. Work Projects Administration

“ It is my opinion that the younger generation is headed in the wrong direction both morally and spiritually. This applies to all races. And this fact must work to the undoing of the government that must soon fall into their hands, for no government can well exist founded upon graft, greed, and dishonesty. It seems that the younger group are more demoralized than the younger group were two generations ago. ”

“ Good Master
“Old Man Bibb was as good and clever a man as ever you knowed. That overseer down there, if he whipped a man Old Man Bibbs would say, ‘Here’s your money. Don’t want you beating up my niggers so they can’t work. I don’t need you.’ He’d tell ’im quick he don’t need him and he can git. That’s the kind of man he was. Wouldn’t let you be mobbed up. He was a good christian man. I’ll give that to him. In the time of the War when they was freeing slaves and I was a little old eight-year-old kid, there was a little old Dutchman, a Tennessee man, he came out in the country to get feed. ”

“ Opinions of Young People
“The young Niggers aint got as much sense as the old ones had,—those that were born before the war. One thing, they don’t read enough. They don’t know history. I can’t understand them. Looks like to me they had a mighty good chance; but it looks like the more they get the worse they are. Looks like to me their parents didn’t teach them right—or somethin’. Young ladies—I look at them every day of my life—coarse, swearing, running with bootleggers, and running the hoodlums down, smok ing, going half-naked, and so on. They don’t care what they do or nothing.” ”

“ Wolf was a man, old, old man on a big plantation. He had one hundred slaves. He didn’t know his slaves when he met one of them. He had overseers. He talked with his slaves when he met one about and they would tell him, ‘You’re my master.’ They said during the War the old man had cotton seed boiled down for his slaves to eat. The War was about to starve them all out. Oil mills were unheard of at that time.
“The War brought freedom and starvation both to the slaves. I heard old people say they died in piles from exposure and hunger. ”

“ I wash and iron, cook wherever some one comes for me. When I was a girl I was so much like mother—a fast, strong hand in the field, I always had work.
“Mother said, ‘Eat the beans and greens, pot-liquor and sweet milk, make you fat and lazy.’ That was what they put in the children’s wooden trays in slavery. They give the men and women meat and the children the broth and dumplings, plenty molasses. Sunday mother could cook at home in slavery if she’d ’tend to the baby too. All the hands on Harrises place et dinner with their family on Sunday. He was fair with his slaves. ”

“ When they were at the other end of the row, all at once a cloud no bigger than a small spot came up, and it grew fast, and it thundered and lightened as if the world were coming to an end, and the rain just came down in great sheets. ”

“ I seed the Ku Klux Klans in the road light nights—when they pass we all peep out the cracks. They didn’t bother nobody I knowed. We was scared they would turn in an come to the house.
“I farmed all my life, hoed cotton and corn. No maam I aint never voted—I jess lives wid my children here and my son in Memphis and my other daughter at Helena. My daughter do farm work and my son railroads. He works in the yards.
“I don’t know what to say bout the generations comin on. They is smarter in their books and sees more than older folks, but they ain’t no better. You kaint depend on what they says. ”

“ That government which settles its affairs by force and abuse shows more weakness than the weak people which it abuses.
“We need not think that we are through with the job when we kill the weaker man. No cause is sufficient for the destruction of seven hundred thousand people, and no persecutor is safe from the effects of his own persecution.” ”

“ Miss Betsy was my young mistress. I could go to see all my folks. I never seen no hard times in my life. I had to work or be called lazy. I loved to work. I been in the field when the sun come up and got part my ploughing done. Go back to the house and eat and feed my mule, rest around in the shade. Folks didn’t used to dread work so bad like they do now. I lay down and rest in the heat of the day. They had big shade trees for us niggers to rest under, eat under, spring water to drink. ”

“ Master Harris let a Negro trader have grandma, mother and her three brothers. They left grandpa. Master Harris told the nigger traders not divide grandma from her children. He didn’t believe in that. He was letting them go from their father. That was enough sorrow for them to bear. That was in Alabama they was auctioned off. Master Harris lived in Georgia. The auctioneerer held mother’s arms up, turned her all around, made her kick, run, jump about to see how nimble and quick she was. He said this old woman can cook. She has been a good worker in the field. She’s a good cook. ”

“ I used to follow railroading or saw milling or farming. That is what I followed when I was able to work. The last work I did was farming, working by the day—a dollar and a half a day. And they cut it down and cut me down. Now they ain’t giving nothing. If a man gets six bits a day he doing good. Harder times in Arkansas now than I have ever seen before. If a man is able to take care of his family now, he is doing well. They don’t give niggers nothing now.
“The only way I live is I get a little pension. They give me eight dollars a month and commodities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Old master every time they go back say: ‘You all go on away. You been set free. You have to look out for your selves now.’
“The only way I know this is I remembers from hearin’ my dear old mama tell me when she come here to see me. I was too little. I guess I wasn’t born till two or three years, maybe longer than that, after freedom.
“After my son died here I get $2.50 a month, just my house rent. I work out when I can get something to do. Work is so scarce I hardly get a living.
“If you could see my brother in Little Rock he could tell you a heap he remembers. ”

“ When you got big enough to marry and was courtin’ a woman on another plantation, you couldn’t bring her home with you. Old master would marry you. He’d say ‘I give this man to you’ and say ‘Clark, I give this woman to you and now you is man and wife.’ They never had no book of matrimony—if they did I never seen it. ”

“ We had to cook out in the yard on an old skillet and lid, so you see I had to tote brush and bark and roll up little logs such as I could to keep the fire from one time of cooking to the other. I was not but six years old either. When I got to be seven years old I was cutting sprouts almost like a man and when I was eight I could pick one hundred pounds of cotton. When it rained and we could not go to the field my aunty had me spinning thread to make socks and cloth, then I had to card the bats and make the rolls to spin.
“My auntie was a slave and she lived in the edge of the field. ”

“ My father was a finished mechanic. I never had to do any work until after the Civil War, but I was just crazy about railroading and went to railroading early. I railroaded all my life. I did some draying too and a lot of concreting too.
“I was born free. There weren’t so many free Niggers in Georgia. None that I knew owned any slaves. I never heered of any owning any slaves. My mother was a full blooded Cherokee woman, and my father was a dark Spaniard.” (“Dad” or “Pappy” Holloway is a fine looking old white man and shows evidence of White and Indian blood; however, Negro blood shows.) ”

“ Only thing I see, you can’t get credit to run crops and folks all trying to shun farming. When I was on a farm I dearly loved it. It the place to raise young black and white both. Town and cars ruined the country. ”

“ Times have got to be so fast. It is just terrible to think how this life is. So much change from forty to fifty years ago. Just as much difference on both sides, white and colored, as there is between chalk and cheese.”
Praying Under Pots
“When they’d go to have a church meeting, they turn up the pot so that the noise wouldn’t come out. They could go to the white folks’ church. But the spirit would come on them sometimes to have service themselves. Then they’d go down to the house at night and turn up those big old iron pots and master never would hear. ”

“ El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 88
“I was born in Alabama. My old mistress and master told me that I was born in 1850. Get that good—1850! That makes me about 88 but I can’t member the day and month. I was a girl about twelve or fourteen years old when the old darkies was set free. My old mistress and master did not call us niggers; they called us darkies. I can’t recollect much about slavery and I can recollect lots too at times. My mind goes and comes. I tell you children you all is living a white life nowdays. When I was coming up I was sold to a family in Alabama by the name of Columbus. ”

“ I come to Jackson, Tennessee, then to Forrest City, brought my famlee. My baby child is grown and married.
“The Ku Klux never bothered me. It was a mighty little I ever seen of them.
“I never have had a hard time. I have worked hard. I been ploughing, hoeing, cradling grain, picking cotton all my life. I love to plough and cradle grain. I love to work.
“There is a big difference now and the way I was raised up. They used to be whooped and made mind. They learned how to work. Now the times run away from the people. They used to buy what they couldn’t raise in barrels. ”

“ The white folks didn’t allow the slaves to handle no money. The quarter got stuck in her throat, and she went on down to the slough and drowned herself rather than let them beat her, and mark her up. Then patrollers sure would get you and beat you up. If they couldn’t catch you when you were running away from them, they would come on your master’s place and get you and beat you. The master would allow them to do it. They didn’t let the patrollers come on the Blackshear place, but this gal was so hard-headed ’bout goin’ out that they made a ’ception to her. ”

“ Some of the white people thought so much of their slaves that they would teach them how to write and read. But they would teach them secretly and they would teach them not to read or write out where anybody would notice them. ”

“ All of the other Negroes were driven on the farm. He had to labor but he didn’t have to work with the other slaves on the farm unless there was no mechanical work to do. He was given better work because he was a skilled mechanic. He taught Isom blacksmithing, brickmaking and bricklaying, shoemaking, carpentry, and other things. The ordinary blacksmith has to order plow points and put than on, but Luke made the points themselves, and he taught Isom to do it. And he taught him to make mats, chairs, and other weaving work. He died sometime before the War. ”

“ Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi always were tough states on colored people. South Carolina and Georgia got that way after people from those places came in and taught them to mistreat colored people. Yet in Alabama and Louisiana where they colored people were worse treated, it seems that they got hold of more property and money. ”

“ Negroes got the most licks. I never was sassy. I never got but a mighty few licks from nobody. We was slaves and that is about all to say.
“I learned to fiddle after the fiddler on the place. Uncle Jim was the fiddler. Andy Jackson, a white boy, raised him. He learned him to read and write in slavery. After slavery I went to learn from a Negro man at night. I learned a little bit. My master wouldn’t cared if we had learned to read and write but the white folks had tuition school. ”

“ I don’t never ’member him payin’ me, but I got somethin’ to eat and a place to stay.
“I never went to school; I had to work. I farmed all my life till I come to the city of Pine Bluff. I worked here ’bout thirty years.
“I’ve always been well treated by my white folks. I never sassed a white person in my life as I remember of—never did. I think that’s the reason I was so well took care of ’cause I never sassed ’em. I’ve always tried to do what was right. ”

“ My father said that the patrollers would run you and ketch you and whip you if you didn’t have a pass, when you was away from the pass. But they didn’t bother you if you had a pass. The patrollers were mean white people who called themselves making the niggers stay home. I think they were hired. They called their selves making the niggers stay home. They went all through the community looking for people, and whipping them when they’d leave home without a pass. They said you wasn’t submissive when you left home without a pass. ”

“ When I was a baby Rubin Harriett bought me and mama. His wife was Becky Harriett. Ma was too old to sell without me. They didn’t want to sell me but they couldn’t sell her widout me. I am the baby of our family. Papa didn’t get to come to Arkansas. That parted them. After freedom her other children came. I heard ma say how they kept papa dodged round from the Yankees. The white folks kept him dodged round. He was a field hand. Ma was a cook and house girl. She never did work in the field till she come out here. She said white folks didn’t whoop him ”

“ I have heard my father and mother talk over the War so many times. They would talk about how the white people would do the colored and how the Yankees would come in and tear up everything and take anything they could get their hands on. They would tell how the colored people would soon be free. My mama’s white folks went out and hid when the Yankees were coming through. ”