“No, I ain’t voted in a long time; can’t afford to vote because I never have the dollar.  No dollar—­no vote.  Depression done fixed my votin’.

“Jest me and my wife, but it takes pluggin’ away to get along.  We belongs to the C.M.E.  Church since 1915.  I was janitor at the West Ward School for seven years, and sure liked dat job.

“Don’t ask me anything about dese boys and gals livin’ today.  Much difference in dem and de young folks livin’ in my time as between me and you.  No dependence to be put in em.  My estimony is dat de black servants today workin’ for de whites learns things from dem white girls dat dey never knowed before, and den goes home and does things dey never done before.

“Don’t ricollect many of de old-time songs, but one was somep’n like—­“Am I Born to Die?” And—­oh, yes,—­lots of times we sung ‘Amazin’ Grace, how sweet de soun’ dat saves a race like me.’

“No suh, I ain’t got no education—­never had a chance to git one.”

Note:  The underscored words are actual quotations.  “Estimony” for “opinion” was a characteristic in Gus’ vocabulary; “race” for the original “wretch” in the song may have been a general error in some local congregations.

Interviewer:  Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed:  Henrietta Williams
                    B. Avenue, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age:  About 82

“I am about 82 years old.  I was born in Georgia down in the cotton patch.  I did not know much about slavery, for I was raised in the white folks’ house, and my old mistress called me her little nigger, and she didn’t allow me to be whipped and drove around.  I remember my old master whipped me one time and old mistress fussed with him so much he never did whip me any more.

“I never had to get out and do any real hard work until I was nearly grown.  My mother did not have but one child.  My father was sold from my mother when I was about two years old and he was carried to Texas and I did not see him any more until I was 35 years old.  So my mother married again when she was set free.  I didn’t stay with my mother very much.  She stayed off in a little log house with a dirt floor, and she cooked on the fireplace with a skillet and lid, and the house had one window with a shutter.  She had to cut logs and roll them like a man and split rails and plow.  I would sometimes ask old mistress to let me go out where my mother was working to see her plow and when I got to be a big girl about nine years she began learning me how to plow.

“I often told the niggers the white folks raised me.  The niggers tell me, ’Yes, the white folks raise you but the niggers is going to kill you.’

“After freedom my mistress and master moved to Louisiana.  They farmed.  They owned a big plantation.  I did the housework.

“The biggest snow I remember was the big centennial snow.  Oh, that’s been years ago.  The snow was so deep you couldn’t get out of the house.  The boys had to take the shovel and the hoe and keep the snow raked away from around the door.