“I never went to school till I was sixteen or seventeen years old.  Dere was a colored fellow had a little learnin’ and we hired him two nights in de week for three dollars a month.  Did it for three years.  I can read a little and write my own name and sort of ’tend to my own business.

“Yes’m, I used to vote after I got grown.  Yes’m, I did vote Republican.  But de white people stopped us from votin’.  Dat was when Seymour and Blair was runnin’, and I ain’t voted none since—­I just quit.  I’ve known white people to go to the polls wif der guns and keep de colored folks from votin’.

“Oh, dey was plenty of Ku Klux.  I’ve known ’em to ketch people and whip ’em and kill ’em.  Dey didn’t bother me—­I didn’t give ’em a chance.  Ku Klux—­I sure ’member dem.

“Younger generation?  Well, Miss, you’re a little too hard for me.  Hard to tell what’ll become of ’em.  I know one thing—­dey is wiser.  Oh, my Lawd!  A chile a year old know more’n I did when I was ten.  We didn’t have no chance.  Didn’t have nobody to learn us nothin’.  People is just gittin’ wuss ever’ day.  Killin’ ’em up ever’ day.  Wuss now than dey was ten years ago.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Louise Pettis, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  59

“My mama was born at Aiken, South Carolina.  She was Frances Rotan.  I was born at Elba, South Carolina, forty miles below Augusta, Georgia.  My papa was born at Macon, Georgia.  Both my parents was slaves.  He farmed and was a Baptist preacher.  Mama was a cook.

“Mama was owned by some of the Willis.  There was three; Mike, Bill, and Logie Willis, all brothers, and she lived with them all but who owned her I don’t know.  She never was sold.  Papa wasn’t either.  Mama lived at Aiken till papa married her.  She belong to some of the Willis.  They married after freedom.  She had three husbands and fifteen children.

“Mama had a soldier husband.  He took her to James Island.  She runned off from him.  Got back across the sea to Charleston to Aunt Anette’s.  She was mama’s sister.  Mama sent back to Aiken and they got her back to her folks.  Aunt Anette had been sold to folks at Charleston.

“Grandma was Rachel Willis.  She suckled some of the Willis children.  Mama suckled me and Mike Willis together.  His mama got sick and my mama took him and raised him.  She got well but their names have left me.  When we got sick the Willis women would send a hamper basket full of provisions, some cooked and some to be cooked.  I used to sweep their yards.  They was white sand and not a sprig of grass nor a weed in there.

“Mama and papa was both slavery niggers and they spoke mighty well of their owners.