I’m glad if I been able to give you some help.  You’ve been patient with an old woman.  I can tell you that every word I have told you is true as the gospel.

Circumstances of Interview
state—­Arkansas
name of worker—­Samuel S. Taylor
address—­Little Rock, Arkansas
date—­December, 1938
subject—­Ex-slave
[TR:  Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1.  Name and address of informant—­Julia White, 3003 Cross Street, Little Rock.

2.  Date and time of interview—­

3.  Place of interview—­3003 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas

4.  Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—­

5.  Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—­

6.  Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—­

Personal History of informant

1.  Ancestry—­

2.  Place and date of birth—­Little Rock, Arkansas, 1858

3.  Family—­Two children

4.  Places lived in, with dates—­Little Rock all her life.

5.  Education, with dates—­

6.  Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—­

7.  Special skills and interests—­

8.  Community and religious activities—­

9.  Description of informant—­

10.  Other points gained in interview—­She tells of accomplishments made by the Negro race.

Text of Interview (Unedited)

“I was born right here in Little Rock, Arkansas, eighty years ago on the corner of Fifth and Broadway.  It was in a little log house.  That used to be out in the woods.  At least, that is where they told me I was born.  I was there but I don’t remember it.  The first place I remember was a house on Third and Cumberland, the southwest corner.  That was before the war.

“We were living there when peace was declared.  You know, my father hired my mother’s time from James Moore.  He used to belong to Dick Galloway.  I don’t know how that was.  But I know he put my mother in that house on Third and Cumberland while she was still a slave.  And we smaller children stayed in the house with mother, and the larger children worked on James Moore’s plantation.

“My father was at that time, I guess, you would call it, a porter at McAlmont’s drug store.  He was a slave at that time but he worked there.  He was working there the day this place was taken.  I’ll never forget that.  It was on September 10th.  We were going across Third Street, and there was a Union woman told mamma to bring us over there, because the soldiers were about to attack the town and they were going to have a battle.

“I had on a pair of these brogans with brass plates on them, and they were flapping open and I tripped up just as the rebel soldiers were running by.  One of them said, “There’s a like yeller nigger, les take her.”  Mrs. Farmer, the Union woman ran out and said, “No you won’t; that’s my nigger.”  And she took us in her house.  And we stayed there while there was danger.  Then my father came back from the drug store, she said she didn’t see how he kept from being killed.