“My original name was not Brown.  It was Pope.  I became Brown after the War was over.  I moved on the old Barnes’ farm.  When the soldiers were mustered out in the end of the War, a lot of soldiers worked on that place.  Peter Brown, an old colored soldier mustered out from Memphis, met my mother, courted her, and married her.  All the other children that were born to her were called Brown, and the people called her Brown, and just called all the other children Brown too, including me.  And I just let it go that way.  But my father was named Harrison Pope.  He died in the Confederate army out there somewheres around Little Rock.  He had violated some of the military laws, and they put him in that thing they had to punish them by, and when they taken him out, he contracted pneumonia and died.  I don’t know where he is buried.  I would to God I did!  You know when these Southern armies went along they carried colored stevedores to do the work for them.

Patrollers

“I was a little fellow in the time of the pateroles.  If the slaves wanted to go out anywhere, they had to get a pass and they had to be back at a certain time.  If they didn’t get back, it would be some kind of punishment.  The pateroles was a mighty bad thing.  If they caught you when you were out without a pass, they would whip you unmercifully, and if you were out too late they would whip you.  Wherever colored people had a gathering, them pateroles would be there looking on to see if they could find anybody without a pass.  If they did find anybody that couldn’t show a pass, they would take him right out and whip him then and there.

Ku Klux

“I know the Ku Klux must have been in use before the War because I remember the business when I was a little bit of a fellow.  They had a place out there on Crowley’s Ridge they used to meet at.  They tried to make the impression that they would be old Confederate soldiers that had been killed in the battle of Shiloh, and they used to ride down from the Ridge hollering, ‘Oh!  Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!’ They would have on those old uniforms and would call for water.  And they would have some way of pouring the water down in a bag or something underneath their uniforms so that it would look like they could drink four or five gallons.

“One night when they come galloping down on their horses hollering ’Oh!  Lordy, Lordy’ like they used to, some Yankee soldiers stationed nearby tied ropes across the road and killed about twenty-five of the horses and broke legs and arms of about ten or fifteen.  They never used the ridge any more after that.

Parents

“My father’s master was Shep Pope and his wife was named Julia Pope.  I can’t remember where my father was born but my mother was born in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama.  I don’t know the names of my grandfather and grandmother on either side.