“Them was critical times.  A man would kill you if he got beat.  They would say, ‘So and so lost the lection,’ and then somebody would go to Judgment.  I remember once they had a big barbecue in Helena just after the ’lection.  They had it for the white and for the colored alike.  We didn’t know there was any trouble.  The shooting started on a hill where everybody could see.  First thing you know, one man fell dead.  Another dropped down on all fours bleeding, but he retch in under him and dragged out a pistol and shot down the man that shot him.  That was a sad time.  Niggers and white folks were all mixed up together and shooting.  It was the first time I had ever been out.  My mother never would let me go out before that.

Seamstress

“I ain’t able to do much of anything now.  I used to make a good living as a dressmaker.  I can’t sew now because of my eyes.  I used to make many a dollar before my eyes got to failing me.  Make pants, dresses, anything.  When you get old, you fail in what you been doing.  I don’t get anything from the government.  They don’t give me any kind of help.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  John Peterson, 1810 Eureka Street,
                    Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  80

“I was small but I can remember some ’bout slavery days.  I was born down here in Louisiana.

“I seed dem Yankees come through.  Dey stopped dere and broke up all de bee gums.  Just tore ’em up.  And took what dey could eat and went on.  Dey was doin’ all dey could do.  No tellin’ what dey didn’t do.  People what owned de place just run off and left.  Yankees come dere in de night.  I ’member dat.  Had ever’thing excited, so my white folks just skipped out.  Oh, yes, dey come back after the Yankees had gwine on.

“You could hear dem guns shootin’ around.  I heered my mother and father say de Yankees was fightin’ to free slavery.

“Run off?  Oh Lawd, yes ma’am, I heered ’em say dey was plenty of ’em run off.

“George Swapsy was our owner.  I know one thing, dey beat me enough.  Had me watchin’ de garden to keep de chickens out.  And sometimes I’d git to playin’ and fergit and de chickens would git in de garden, and I’d pay for it too.  I can ’member dat.  Yes’m, dat was before freedom.  Dey was whippin’ all de colored people—­and me too.

“Yes’m, dey give us plenty to eat, but dey didn’t give us no clothes.  I was naked half my time.  Dat was when I was a little fellow.

“We all belonged to de same man.  Dey never did ’part us.  But my mother was sold away from her people—­and my father, too.  He come from Virginia.

“No ma’am, dey didn’t have a big plantation—­just a little place cleared up in the woods.

“He didn’t have no wife—­just two grown sons and dey bof went to the war.

“Mars George died ’fore peace declared.  He was a old fellow—­and mean as he could be.