“They had meetings at Center Point, and at Arkadelphia.  And they would let us go to them or anywhere else we wanted.  We had to have passes, of course.  They had colored preachers.  Sometimes the slaves would go to the white people’s church.  They wouldn’t go often, just every once in awhile.  White ladies would get after the colored to come and go with them sometimes.  Sometimes, too, when they would have a dinner or something, they would take Aunt Sue or mother to cook for them.  They wouldn’t let nobody meddle with them or bother them—­none of the other white folks.  And they would let them fix a table for their own friends that they would want to have along.

Personal Occupations

“I used to work in the field or in the house or anything I could get to do.  I would even go out and saw these big rails when my husband would have a job and couldn’t get a chance to do it.  It has been a good while since I have been able to do any good work.  My husband has been dead fifteen years and I had to quit work long before he died.

Right after the War

“Right after the War my folks worked in the field, washed, cooked, or anything they could do.  They left the old place and came down about Washington, Arkansas.  I don’t know just how long they stayed in Washington.  From Washington, my mother went to Prescott and settled there at a little place they called Sweet Home, just outside of Prescott.  That is where my daughter was born and that is where my mother died.  I came here about nine years ago.

Present Support

I came here to stay with my daughter.  But now she doesn’t have any help herself.  She has three small children and she’s their only support now.  She’s not working either.  She just come in from the Urban League looking for a job.  They say that they don’t have a thing and that the people don’t want any women now.  They just want these young girls because they make them work cheaper.  We have both applied for help from the Welfare but neither of us has gotten anything yet.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Hattie Thompson, Widener, Arkansas
Age:  72

“I was born the second year after the surrender.  I was born close to Arlington, Tennessee.  My parents was Mariah Thermon and Johnson Mayo.  They had eight children.  They belong to different owners.  I heard mama say in slavery time she’d clean her house good Saturday and clean up her children and start cooking dinner fore pa come.  They looked forward to pa coming.  Now that was at our own house.