“I went to free school in the summertime after the crops was laid by, I can read and write pretty good.

“I came here to Jefferson County in ’eighty-six and I put in thirty-six years at the Cotton Belt Shops.  When that strike come on they told us colored folks to quit and I never went back.  I worked for em when she was a narrow gauge.

“I worked in the North three years.  I nightwatched all over St. Louis and Madison, Illinois.  I liked it fine up there—­white folks is more familiar up there and seems like you can get favors.  If I don’t get somethin’ here, I’m goin’ back up there.

“When I got big enough I voted the Republican ticket and after they got this primary.  I think the colored people ought to vote now cause they make em pay taxes.

“I’ll tell you right now, the younger generation is goin’ to the dogs.  We’ll never make a nation of em as long as they go out to these places at night.  They ought to be a law passed.  When nine o’clock comes they ought to be home in bed, but they is just gettin’ started then.

“I belong to the Catholic Church.  I think it’s a pretty good church.  We have a white priest and I’ll tell you one thing thing—­you can’t get a divorce and marry again and stay in the Catholic Church.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Dora Richard
                    3301 W. 14th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  76

“I was born in South Carolina and I was my mother’s baby chile.

“Jacob Foster was our old master and he sold my mother over in east Tennessee.  Now of cose she wasn’t put upon the block and sold.  She was the house woman and spin and wove.  After they sold her my father run off.  Oh sure, they caught him and I know old mistress said, ’Now, Jacob, if you want to go where Lydia is, you can go.’  So they sold him near her.

“I stayed with the Fosters till peace was declared and ever’thing was declared free.  Then my father come after me.

“I can just sketch things.  I try to forget it.  My mother and father was pretty agreeable when they was set free.

“In Tennessee we stayed at the foot of Lookout Mountain and I can remember seein’ the cannon balls.

“Here’s the way I want to tell you.  Some of the white people are as good to the colored people as they could be and some of em are mean.  My own folks do so bad I’m ashamed of em.

“So many of the colored of the South have emigrated to the North.  I have lived there and I don’t know why I’m here now.

“Some of my color don’t like that about the Jim Crow Law, but I say if they furnish us a nice comfortable coach I would rather be with my own people.  And I don’t care to go to the white folks’ church.

“My mother used to tell me how they used to hide behind trees so the boss man couldn’t see em when they was prayin’ and at night put out the light and turn the pot down.