“I don’t vote.  Seem like it used to not be a nice place for women to go where voting was taking place.  Now they go mix up and vote.  That is one big change.  Time is changing and changing the people.  Maybe it is the people is changing up the world as time goes by.  We colored folks look to the white folks to know the way to do.  We have always done it.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Mary Mitchell, Hazen, Arkansas
Age:  60

“I was born in Trenton, Tennessee.  My parents had five children.  They were named William and Charlotte Wells.  My father ran away and left my mother with all the children to raise.  By birth mother was a Mississippian.  She had been a nurse and my father was a timber man and farmer.  My mother said she had her hardest time raising her little children.  She was taken from her parents when a small girl and put on a block and sold.  She never said if her owners was bad to her, but she said they was rough on Uncle Peter.  He would fight.  She said they would tie Uncle Peter and whoop him with a strap.  From what she said there was a gang of slaves on Mr. Wade’s place.  He owned her.  I never heard her mention freedom but she said they had a big farm bell on a tall post in the back yard and they had a horn to blow.  It was a whistle made of a cow’s horn.

“She said they was all afraid of the Ku Klux.  They would ride across the field and they could see that they was around, but they never come up close to them.”

Circumstances of Interview
state—­Arkansas
name of worker—­Bernice Bowden
address—­1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
date—­November 3, 1938
subject—­Exslaves
[TR:  Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1.  Name and address of informant—­Moses Mitchell, 117 Worthen Street

2.  Date and time of interview—­November 1, 1938, 1:00 p.m.

3.  Place of interview—­117 Worthen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

4.  Place and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—­Bernice Wilburn, 101 Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

5.  Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—­None

6.  Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—­A frame house (rented), bare floors, no window shades; a bed and some boxes and three straight chairs.  In an adjoining room were another bed, heating stove, two trunks, one straight chair, one rocking chair.  A third room, the kitchen, contained cookstove and table and chairs.

Text of Interview

“I was born down here on White River near Arkansas Post, August, 1849.  I belonged to Thomas Mitchel and when they (Yankees) took Arkansas Post, our owners gathered us up and my young master took us to Texas and he sold me to an Irishman named John McInish in Marshall for $1500. $500 in gold and the rest in Confederate money.  They called it the new issue.