“Mama was lighter than I am.  She had Indian blood in her.  One auntee was half white.  She was lighter than I am, had straight hair; the other auntee was real dark.  She spun and wove and knit socks.  Mama said they had plenty to eat at both homes.  Dr. Pope was good to her.  Mama went to the white folks church to look after the babies.  They took the babies and all the little children to church in them days.

“Mama said the preachers told the slaves to be good and bedient.  The colored folks would meet up wid one another at preaching same as the white folks.  I heard my auntees say when the Yankees come to the house the mistress would run give the house women their money and jewelry and soon as the Yankees leave they would come get it.  That was at Wares in Mississippi.

“I heard them talk about slipping off and going to some house on the place and other places too and pray for freedom during the War.  They turned an iron pot upside down in the room.  When some mens’ slaves was caught on another man’s place he was allowed to whoop them and send them home and they would git another whooping.  Some men wouldn’t allow that; they said they would tend to their own slaves.  So many men had to leave home to go to war times got slack.

“It was Judge Martin that owned my papa before he was freed.  He lived close to Augusta, Arkansas.  When he was freed he lived at Dr. Pope’s.  He was sold in North Carolina.  Dr. Pope and Judge Martin told them they was free.  Mama stayed on with Dr. Pope and he paid her.  He never did whoop her.  Mama told me all this.  She died a few years ago.  She was old.  I never heard much about the Ku Klux.  Mama was a good speller.  I was a good speller at school and she learned with us.  I spelled in Webster’s Blue Back Speller.

“We children stayed around home till we married off.  I nursed nearly all my life.  Me and my husband farmed ten years.  He died.  I don’t have a child.  I wish I did have a girl.  My cousin married us in the church.  His name was Andrew Baccus.

“After my husband died I went to Coffeeville, Kansas and nursed an old invalid white woman three years, till she died.  I come back here where I was knowed.  I’m keeping this house for some people gone off.  Part of the house is rented out and I get $8 and commodities.  I been sick with the chills.”

Interviewer:  S.S.  Taylor
Person interviewed:  Robert Barr
                    3108 West 18th St.
                    Little Rock, Ark. 
Age:  73
Occupation:  Preaching

[HW:  A Preacher Tells His Story]

“I am a minister of the Gospel.  I have been preaching for the last thirty years.  I am batching here.  A man does better to live by himself.  Young people got the devil in them now a days.  Your own children don’t want you around.

“I got one grand-daughter that ain’t never stood on the floor.  Her husband kicked her and hit her and she ain’t never been able to stand up since.  I got another daughter that ain’t thinking about marrying.  She just goes from one man to the other.