“I seen the Ku Klux but they never bothered us.  I seen them in Alabama, I recken it was.  I was so small I jes’ do remember seeing them.  I was the onliest child born in Alabama.  Pa made one crop.  I don’t know how they got along the rest of the time there.  We started share cropping in Mississippi.  Pa was always a good hand with stock.  If they got sick they sent for him to tell them what to do.  He never owned no land, no home neither.

“I farmed all my life.  I used to make a little money along during the year washing and ironing.  I don’t get no help.  I live with the girls.  My girl in Memphis sends me a little change to buy my snuff and little things I have to have.  She cooks for a lawyer now.  She did take care of an lady.  She died since I been here and she moved.  I rather work in the field than do what she done when that old lady lived.  She was like a baby to tend to.  She had to stay in that house all the time.

“The young folks don’t learn manners now like they used to.  Times is better than I ever seen em.  Poor folks have a hard time any time.  Some folks got a lot and some ain’t got nothing everywhere.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Claiborne Moss
                    1812 Marshall Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  81

“I was born in Washington County, Georgia, on Archie Duggins’ plantation, fifteen miles from Sandersville, the county-seat, June 18, 1857.

“My mother’s name was Ellen Moss.  She was born in Georgia too, in Hancock County, near Sparta, the county-seat.  My father was Fluellen Moss.  He, too, was born in Hancock County.  Bill Moss was his owner.  Jesse Battle was my mother’s owner before she married.  My mother and father had ten children, none of them living now but me, so far as I know.  I was the fifth in line.  There were four older than I. The oldest was ten years older than I.

“Bill Moss’ and Jesse Battle’s plantations ware not far apart.  I never heard my father say how he first met my mother.  I was only eight years old when he died.  They were all right there in the same neighborhood, and they would go visiting.  Battle and Moss and Evans all had plantations in the same neighborhood and they would go from one place to the other.

“When Bill Moss went to Texas, he gave my mother and father to Mrs. Beck.  Mrs. Beck was Battle’s daughter and Mrs. Beck bought my father from Moss and that kept them together.  He was that good.  Moss sold out and went to Texas and all his slaves went walking while he went on the train.  He had about a hundred of them.  When he got there, he couldn’t hear from them.  He didn’t know where they was—­they was walking and he had got on the train—­so he killed hisself.  When they got there, just walking along, they found him dead.

“Moss’ nephew, Whaley, got two parts of all he had.  Another fellow—­I can’t call his name—­got one part.  His sister, they sent her back five—­three of my uncles and two of my aunties.