“My father farmed and sharecropped for a while after the war.  He changed from his master’s place the second year and went on another place.  He farmed all his life.  He raised all his children and got wore out and pore.  He died in Kemper County, Mississippi.  All his children and everything was raised there.

Life Since the War

“I came to Arkansas in the eighties.  Come to Helena.  I did carpenter and farm work in Helena.  I made three crops, one for Phil Maddox, two with Miss Hobbs.  I come from Helena here.

“I married in Mississippi in Roland Forks, sixty miles this side of Vicksburg.  I had two boys and three girls.  Two girls died in Helena.  One died in Roland Forks before I come to Helena.  Nary one of the boys didn’t die.

“I don’t do no work now.  This rheumatism’s got me down.  I call that age.  If I could work, I couldn’t git nothing worth while.  These niggers here won’t pay you nothing they promise you.  My boy’s got me to feed as long as I live now.  I did a batch of work for the colored people round here in the spring of the year and I ain’t got no money for it yit.

“I belong to the Mount Zion Baptist Church; I reckon I do.  I got down sick so I couldn’t go and I don’t know whether they turned me out or no.  I tell you, people don’t care nothin about you when you get old or stricken down.  They pretend they do, but they don’t.  My mind is good and I got just as much ambition as I ever had.  But I don’t have the strength.

“I haven’t got but a few more days to lag round in this world.  When you get old and stricken, nobody cares, children nor nobody else.”

Interviewer:  Miss Bailie C. Miller
Person interviewed:  Mag Brown, Clarksville, Arkansas
Age:  85

“I was born in North Carolina and come South with my white folks.  They was trying to git out of the war and run right into it.  My mother died when I was a baby.  I don’t remember my mother no more than you do.  I left my white folks.  When I was 14 years old, we lived out in the country.  They was willing to keep me but after the war they was so poor.  The girls told me if I could come to town and find work I had better do it.  Two of them come nearly to town with me.  They told me I was free to come to town and live with the colored folks.  I didn’t know what it meant to be free.  I was just as free as I wanted to be with my white folks.  When I got to town I stayed with your aunt awhile then she sent me down to stay with your grandma.  A white girl who lived with them, like one of the family, learned me how to cook and iron.  I knew how to wash.

“I don’t know anything about the present generation.  I ain’t been able to git out for the last year or two.  I think I broke my foot, for I had to go on crutches a long time.

“The white folks always sung but I don’t know what they sung.  I didn’t pay no tention to it then.”