“They didn’t get after me ’cause I was too little.  It didn’t last long enough for ’em to get after me.

“I’m sick and not able to help myself.  I got run over by a wagon.

“I’m livin’ here with my daughter.  Her husband is a preacher and they got eight children, so you can imagine how much they can do for me.

“One word of the white folks is worth a thousand of ours.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  James Reeves
                    2419 W. Twentieth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  68
Occupation:  Preacher

“I was born in 1870 down in Ouachita County about fourteen miles south of Camden going on toward El Dorado.  They didn’t have no railroad then.  I was a young man when they put the branch through.  You see, I was born five years after slavery, but I remember my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother.  They taken me and talked to me freely and I know everything they knew.

Great-Grandmother on Mother’s Side

“My great-grandmother belonged to the Goodmans.  Her master was named Bob Goodman.  She lived to get one hundred thirteen years old.  From the children of the old master, I got the information concerning her age.  I looked it up after emancipation.  One of old master’s sons was named Frank Goodman, and another was named Norphleet Goodman, and there was another whose name I don’t recall.

“My grandmother, great-grandmother, was named Frankie Goodman.  I wasn’t here in slavery time, but I knew her after emancipation.

Grandmother on Mother’s Side

“My grandmother was named Hannah Goodman.  These were different Goodmans but they were kin to these others.  There was a large family of them.  I don’t know the correct age of my grandmother but she was up in the eighties when she died.

Mother

“My mother was born a Goodman, but she married Reeves, my father.  The record of their marriage I ain’t got.  Back there, they didn’t keep up like you and I do, and we don’t keep up like these younger folks do.  Near as I could get it, she lived to be about seventy-one years old.

Father

“My father was named Adam Reeves.  His master was named Rick Reeves.  My father was born in Union County about ten miles from El Dorado.  You might say north of El Dorado because he lived south of Camden.  He lived there all his life.  I have known him to move out of Ouachita County into Union, and from Union back to Ouachita.

Grandfather on Mother’s Side

“My grandfather on my mother’s aide was Henry Goodman.  His mistress was a woman by the name of Lucy Goodman.  She was the same woman who owned my mother.  There was a big family of them Goodmans.