“I’m gettin’ along very well now.  I been with white folks all my day—­and it’s hard for me to get along with my folks.

“In one way the world is crueler than they used to be.  They don’t appreciate things like they used to.  They have no feelin’s and don’t care nothin’ bout the olden people.

“Well, good-bye, I’m proud of you.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  John Nelson, Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age:  76

“My parents was Jazz Nelson and Mahaney Nelson.  He come from Louisiana durin’ slavery.  She come from Richmond, Virginia.  I think from what they said he come to Louisiana from there too.  They was plain field hands.

“My folks belong to Miss Mary Ann Richardson and Massa Harve Richardson.  They had five children and every one dead now.  They lived at Duncan Station.

“The white folks told em they was free.  They had no place to go and they been workin’ the crop.  White folks glad for em to stay and work on.  And the truth is they was glad to git to stay on cause they had no place to go.  They kept stayin’ on a long time.

“I was so small I don’t know if the Ku Klux ever did come bout our place at tall.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Lettie Nelson
                    St. Marys Street, Helena, Arkansas
Age:  55 or 56?

“Grandma was Patsy Smith.  She said in slavery they had a certain amount of cotton to pick.  If they didn’t have that amount they would put their heads between the rails of the fences and whoop them.  They whooped them in the ebenin’ when they weighed up the cotton.  Grandma was raised in Virginia.  She was light.  Mama was light.  They was carried from Virginia to Louisiana in wagons.  They found clothes along the road people had lost.  She said several bundles of good clothes.  They thought they had dropped off of wagons ahead of them.  They washed and wore the clothes.  Some of ’em fit so they wore them.  Mama left her husband and brother in Virginia.  Ed Smith was her second husband.  He was a light man.  My grandpa was a field man.  I never heard if grandpa was sold.  Jimmie Stansberry was the man that bought or brought mama and grandma to Louisiana.  Mama cooked and worked in the field both.  Grandma did too.  She cooked in Louisiana more than mama.  They belong to Lou and Jimmie Stansberry and they had two boys.  They lived close to Minden, Louisiana.  I don’t know so much about my parents and grandma talked but we didn’t pay enough attention to remember it all.  She was old and got things confused.

“They was glad when freedom come but they lived on with Jimmie Stansberry.  I remember them.  Grandma raised me after my parents died.  Then she lived with me till she died.  She was awful old when she died.  They would talk about how different Virginia and Louisiana was.  It took them a long time to make that trip.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Mattie Nelson
                    710 E. Fourth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  72