Schooling

“I first went to school at a little log school in Suffolk, Virginia.  From there I went to Hampton, Virginia.  I got my theological training in Shorter College under Dr. T.H.  Jackson.

Ku Klux

“I never had any experience with the Ku Klux Klan.  I seen white men riding horses and my mother said they was Ku Kluxes, but they never bothered us as I remember.  They had two sets of white folks like that.  The patrollers were before and during the War and the Ku Klux Klan came after the War.  I can’t remember how the Ku Klux I saw were dressed.  The patrollers I remember.  They would just be three or four white men riding in bunches.

Nat Turner Rebellion

“I have heard the ‘Nat Turner Rebellion’ spoken of, but I don’t know what was said.  I think the old people called it the ‘Nat Turner War.’

Reconstruction Days

“Lawyer Whipper was one of the best criminal lawyers in the state.  He was a Negro.  The Republican party had the state then and the Negroes were strong.  Robert Small was a noted politician and was elected to go to Congress twice.  The last time he ran, he was elected but had a hard fight.  The election was so close it was contested but Small won out.  He was the last nigger congressman.  I heard that there were one or two more, but I don’t remember them.

“When I first went to South Carolina, them niggers was bad.  They organized.  They used to have an association known as the Union Laborers, I think.  The organization was like the fraternal order.  I don’t know’s they ever had any trouble but they were always in readiness to protect themselves if any conflict arose.  It was a secret order carried on just like any other fraternal order.  They had distress calls.  Every member has an old horn which he blew in time of trouble.  I think that sane kind of organization or something like it was active here when I came.  The Eagles (a big family of white people in Lonoke County) had a fight with members of it once and some of the Eagles were killed a year or two before I came to this state.

Voting and Political Activities

“I voted in South Carolina, but I wasn’t old enough to vote in Georgia.  However, I stumped Taliaferro County for Garfield when I was in Georgia.  I lived in a little town by the name of McCray.  The town I was in, they had never had more than fifteen or twenty Republican votes polled.  But I polled between two hundred and three hundred votes.  I was one of the regular speakers.  The tickets were in my care too.  You see, they had tickets in them days and not the long ballots.  They didn’t have long ballots like they have now.  The tickets were sent to me and I took care of them until the election.  In the campaign I was regularly employed through the Republican Campaign Committee Managers.