“Part ob de time after de nigger war (Civil) I lived in Hot Springs.  President ’Kinley had a big reservation over there and a big hospital for the sick and wounded soldiers.  Den de war broke out in Cuba and dere was a spatch (dispatch) board what de news come over dat de war was on.  Den when dat war was over and ’Kinley was tryin to get us niggers a slave pension dey up and ’sassinated him.

“After Mr. Lincoln sot de slaves free, dey had Northern teachers down South and they were called spies and all left the country.

“I don’t know ’sactly how old I am.  Dey say I am 100.  If Miss Fanny was livin’ she could settle it.  But I have had a hard life.  Yes mam.  Here I is living in my shanty, ‘pendin’ on my good white neighbors to feed me and no income ’cept my Old Age Pension.  Thank God for Mr. Roosevelt.  I love my Southern white friends.  I am glad the North and South done shook hands and made friends.  All I has to do now is sit and look forward to de day when I can meet my old mammy and Miss Fanny in the Glory Land.  Thank God.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Spencer Barnett (blind), Holly Grove, Ark. 
Age:  81

“I was born April 30, 1856.  It was wrote in a old Bible.  I am 81 years old.  I was born 3 miles from Florence, Alabama.  The folks owned us was Nancy and Mars Tom Williams.  To my recollection they had John, William, and Tom, boys; Jane, Ann, Lucy, and Emma, girls.  In my family there was 13 children.  My parents name Harry and Harriett Barnett.

“Mars Tom Williams had a tanning yard.  He bought hides this way:  When a fellow bring hides he would tan em then give him back half what he brought.  Then he work up the rest in shoes, harness, whoops, saddles and sell them.  The man all worked wid him and he had a farm.  He raised corn, cotton, wheat, and oats.

“That slavery was bad.  Mars Tom Williams wasn’t cruel.  He never broke the skin.  When the horn blowed they better be in place.  They used a twisted cowhide whoop.  It was wet and tied, then it mortally would hurt.  One thing you had to be in your place day and night.  It was confinin’.

“Sunday was visiting day.

“One man come to dinner, he hit a horse wid a rock and run way.  He missed his dinner.  He come back fo dark and went tole Mars Tom.  He didn’t whoop him.  I was mighty little when that took place.

“They worked on Saturday like any other day.  One man fixed out the rations.  It didn’t take long fer to go git em.

“The women plowed like men in plow time.  Some women made rails.  When it was cold and raining they spun and wove in the house.  The men cut wood under a shed or side the barn so it knock off the wind.  Mars Tom Williams had 12 grown men and women.  I was too little to count but I heard my folks call am over by name and number more times en I got fingers and toes.  He would hire em out to work some.