Marriage

“You see that broom there?  They just lay that broom down and step over it.  That was all the marriage they knowed about.

Corn Shuckings

“The boys used to just get down and raise a holler and shuck that corn.  Man, they had fun!  They sure liked to go to those corn shuckings.  They danced and went on.  They’d give ’em whiskey too.  That’s all I know about it.

Rations

“They’d weigh the stuff out and give it to you and you better not go back.  They’d give you three pounds of meat and a quart of meal and molasses when they’d make it.  Sometimes they would take a notion to give you something like flour.  But you had to take what they give you.  They give out the rations every Saturday.  That was to last you a week.

Patrollers

“I was at a ball one night.  They had fence rails in the fire.  Patroller knocked at the door, stepped in and closed it behind him.  Nigger pulled a rail out of the fire and stuck it ’gainst the patroller and that patroller stepped aside and let that nigger get by.  Niggers used to tie ropes across the road so that the patrollers’ horses would trip up.

Mulattoes

“I never seed any mulattoes then.  That thing is something that just come up.  Old Dempsey Brown, if he seed a white man goin’ ’round with the nigger women on his place, he run him away from there.  But that’s gwine on in the full now.

“That ought not to be.  If God had wanted them people to mix, he’d have mixed ’em.  God made ’em red and white and black.  And I’m goin’ to stay black.  I ain’t climbed the fence yet and I won’t climb it now.  I don’t know.  I don’t believe in that.  If you are white be white, and if you are black be black.  Children need to go out and play but these boys ought not to be ’lowed to run after these girls.

Whippings

“Your overseer carried their straps with them.  They had ’em with ’em all the time.  Just like them white folks do down to the County Farm.  Used to use a man just like he was a beast.  They’d make him lay down on the ground and whip him.  They’d had to shoot me down.  That is the reason I tend to my business.  If he wouldn’t lay down they’d call for help and strap him down and stretch him out.  Put one man on one arm and another on the other.  They’d pull his clothes down and whip the blood out of him.  Them people didn’t care what they done since they didn’t do right.

Freedom

“When I first heard them talking about freedom, I didn’t know what freedom was.  I was there standin’ right up and looking at ’em when they told us we was free.  And master said, ’You all free now.  You can go where you want to.’