How Freedom Came

“All my mother knew was that it got out that the Negroes were free.  The day before the old woman told them that they were free, my grandfather, Henry Goodman who was a teamster, old mis’ called him and told him to tell all the darkies to come up to the house the next day.

“Next morning, she said, ’Henry, you forgot what I told you.  I want you to call all the darkies up here this morning.’  Henry had a voice like a fog-horn.  He started hollering.  I wish I could holler the way he did, but I got to consider the neighbors.  He hollered.  ’Tention, ’tention, hey; Miss Lucy says she wants you all up to the big house this morning.  She’s got somepin to tell you.’

“They all come up to the yard before the house.  When they got there, she says to him—­not to them; she wouldn’t talk to them that morning; maybe she was too full—­’Henry, you all just as free now as I am.  You can stay here with Miss Lucy or you can go to work with whomsoever you will.  You don’t belong to Miss Lucy no more.’

“She had been sick for quite a bit, and she was just able to come to the door and deliver that message.  Three weeks after that time, they brought her out of the house feet foremost and took her to the cemetery.  The news killed her dead.  That’s been seventy years ago, and they just now picking up on it!

Slave Time Amusements

“The old people say they used to have breakdowns in slave time—­breakdown dances with fiddle and banjo music.  Far after slavery, they had them.  The only other amusement worth speaking about was the churches.  Far as the churches was concerned, they had to steal out and go to them.  Old man Balm Whitlow can tell you all about the way they held church.  They would slip off in the woods and carry a gang of darkies down, and the next morning old master would whip them for it.  Next Sunday they would do the same thing again and get another whipping.  And it went on like that every week.  When old man Whitlow came out from slavery, he continued to preach.  But the darkies didn’t have to steal out then.  He’s dead now, him and the old lady both.

Houses

“The slaves lived in old log houses.  Some of them would be hewed and put up well.  I have seen lots of them.  Sometimes they would dob the cracks with mud and would have box planks floors, one by eight or one by ten, rough lumber, not dressed.  Set ’em as close together as they could but then there would be cracks in them.  I can carry you to some old log houses down in Union County now if they haven’t been torn down recently.