“Times is awful hard.  I am worn clean out.  I am not sick.  I’m ashamed to say I can’t do a good day’s work but I couldn’t.  I am proud to own I get commodities and $8 from the Relief.”

Interviewer:  Thomas Elmore Lacy
Person interviewed:  Sam Miller, Morrilton, Arkansas
Age:  98

“I is ninety-eight years old, suh.  My name’s Sam Miller, and I was born in Texas in 1840—­don’t know de month nor de day.  My parents died when I was jes’ a little chap, and we come to Conway County, Arkansas fifty years ago; been livin’ here ever since.  My wife’s name was Annie Williamson.  We ain’t got no chillun and never had none.  I don’t belong to no chu’ch, but my wife is a Baptis’.

“Can’t see to git around much now.  No, suh, I can’t read or write, neither.  My memory ain’t so good about things when I was little, away back yonder, but I sure members dem Ku Klux Klans and de militia.  They used to ketch people and take em out and whup em.

“Don’t rickolleck any of de old songs but one or two—­oh, yes, dey used to sing ‘Old time religion’s good enough for me’ and songs like dat.

“De young people!  Lawzy, I jest dunno how to take em.  Can’t understand em at all.  Dey too much for me!”

Note:  The old fellow chuckled and shook his head but said very little more.  He could have told much but for his faulty memory, no doubt.  He was almost non-committal as to facts of slavery days, the War between the States, and Reconstruction period.  Has the sense of humor that seems to be a characteristic of most of the old-time Negroes, but aside from a whimsical chuckle shows little of the interest that is usually associated with the old generation of Negroes.

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  W.D.  Miller, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age:  65?

“Grandpa was sold twice in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He was sold twice to the same people, from the Millers to the Robertsons (Robersons, Robinsons, etc.?).  He said the Robertsons were not so very good to him but the Millers were.  Grandma was washing when a Yank come and told them they had been sot free.  They quit washing and went from house to house rejoicing.  My parents’ names was Jesse and Mary Miller, and Grandma Agnes and Grandpa Peter Miller.  The Robertsons was hill wheat farmers.  The Millers had a cloth factory.  Dan Miller owned it and he raised wheat.  Mama was a puny woman and they worked her in the factory.  She made cloth and yarn.

“I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina or close by there.  My father’s uncle John House brought about one hundred families from North Carolina to Quittenden County, Mississippi.  I was seven years old.  He said they rode mules to pick cotton, it growed up like trees.  We come in car boxes.  I came to Heath and Helena eleven years ago.  Papa stayed with his master Dan Miller till my uncle tolled him away.  He died with smallpox soon after we come to Mississippi.