My mother and father’s owner was John Smith.  I recollects hearin them talk bout him well as if it was yesterday—­we worked on McFowell place close to Petersburg, Virginia when I was little.  Then I worked for Miss Bessie and Mr. John Stewart last fore I come with Dr. Hill.  I had lived up there but he come and settled down in Mississippi.

The first place I worked on in Arkansas was the John Reeds bout 3 miles from Danville.  I stayed there 3 years.  My folks stayed on there but I rambled to Little Rock.  I worked with Mr. L.C.  Merrill.  I milked cows and cut grass, fed cows.  He has a automobile company in Little Rock now.  I farmed bout all my life.  Now I don’t own nothing.  I stays at my daughters.  I been married twice.  Both my wives dead.

The times change so much I don’t know whether they any better or not.  The black race ain’t never had nuthin—­some few gets a little headway once in a while.

I used to vote some—­didn’t care nuthin bout it much.  Never seed no good come of it.  Heap of them vote tickets like somebody tell em or don’t know how dey vote.

The young generations better off than the old folks now.  The things change so fast I don’t know how they will get by.

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  William Brown
                    409 W. Twenty-Fifth Street
                    North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  78

[HW:  U.S.  Dictatorship Predicted]

“I was born in Arkansas in Cross County at the foot of Crowley’s Ridge on the east side of the Ridge and just about twelve miles from Old Wittsburg, on May 3, 1861.  I got the date from my mother.  She kept dates by the old family Bible.  I don’t know where she got her learning.  She had a knowledge of reading.  I am about her sixth child.  She was the mother of thirteen.

“My mother’s master was named Bill Neely.  Her mistress was named Mag Neely.

“My mother was one of the leading plow hands on Bill Neely’s farm.  She had a old mule named Jane.  When the Yankees would come down, Bill Neely and all his friends would leave home.  They would leave when they would hear the cannon, because they said that meant the Yankees were coming.  When Neely went away, he would carry my mother to do his cooking.

“She would leave the children there and carry just the baby when she went.  Old Aunt Malinda—­she wasn’t our aunt; she was just an old lady we called Aunt Malinda who cooked for the kitchen—­would cook for us while she was gone.  When the Yankees had passed through, my mother and the master would all come back.