“I votes a Republican ticket.  I haven’t voted since Mr. Taft run.  I don’t have no way to keep up with elections now.  Folks used to talk more, now they keeps quiet.

“I never heard pa say how he come to know about freedom.  Ma said she was refugeed to Texas and when they brung them back, Master Will Walker met them at the creek on his place and he said, ’You all are free now.  You can go on my place or hunt other places.’  They went on his place and they lived there a long time.  I don’t remember ever living on that place.  Pa wasn’t there then.  I don’t know where be could been.  Ma and pa was both Walkers but no blood kin.  Ma didn’t talk much about old times.  She was sold once, she said.  Bass Kelly bought her.  I don’t know if Will Walker traded for her.  She never did say.  Bass Kelly was mean to her.  He beat her and one time she hid and kept hid till she nearly starved, she said.  She hid in the corn crib.  It was a log house.  She didn’t enjoy slavery.  Pa had a very good time, better than us boys had it when we come up.  He worked and kept us with him.  He and ma died the same week.  They had pneumonia in Mississippi.

“I got one sister.  She lives close to Shreveport.  She keeps up with us all.  I go down there every now and then.  She’s not stove up like I am.  She wants me to stay with her all the time.  I gets work down there easier but I have the rheumatism bad down there.

“I don’t know what will become of young folks.  I wish I had their chance.  They can’t wait for nothing.  They in too big a hurry for the crop to grow.  Busy living by the day.  When the year gone they ain’t no better off.  Times is good in places.  Hard in places.  Times better in Louisiana than up here.  Work easier to get.  Folks got more living.

“I’m chopping cotton on Mr. Hill’s place.  I gets ninety cents a day.  I can’t get over the ground fast.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Willie Wallace
                    40th and Georgia Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  80

“I was born in Green County, Alabama.  Elihu Steele was my old master.  Miss Julia was old missis.  She was Elihu’s wife.  Her mother’s name was Penny Hatter.  Miss Penny give my mother to her daughter Julia.

“I was a twin and they choosed us for the cook and washer and ironer, but surrender come along ’fore we got big enough to do anything.

“My father was crippled and couldn’t work in the field, and I remember he used to carry the children out to the field to be suckled.

“They had a right smart of slaves.  My mother had twelve children and I’m the baby.

“I remember they’d make up a big pot of corn bread and pot-liquor and they’d say, ‘Eat, chillun, eat.’

“I remember one time the white folks had some stock tied out, and I know my sister’s little boy didn’t know no better and he showed the Yankees where they was.

“I remember when they said the people was free, but our folks stayed right on there—­I don’t know how many years—­’cause my mother thought a heap of her old missis, Penny.