Dr. Buckner is no exception and our interviews were often disturbed by the jingle of the door bell or a telephone call.

Dr. Buckner’s conversation lead in ever widening circles, away from the topic under discussion when the events of his own life were discussed, but he is a fluent speaker and a student of psychology.  Psychology as that philosophy relates to the mental and bodily tendencies of the African race has long since become one of the major subjects with which this unusual man struggles.  “Why is the negro?” is one of his deepest concerns.

Dr. Buckner’s first recollections center within a slave cabin in Kentucky.  The cabin was the home of his step-father, his invalid mother and several children.  The cabin was of the crudest construction, its only windows being merely holes in the cabin wall with crude bark shutters arranged to keep out snow and rain.  The furnishings of this home consisted of a wood bedstead upon which a rough straw bed and patchwork quilts provided meager comforts for the invalid mother.  A straw bed that could be pushed under the bed-stead through the day was pulled into the middle of the cabin at night and the wearied children were put to bed by the impatient step-father.

The parents were slaves and served a master not wealthy enough to provide adaquately for their comforts.  The mother had become invalidate through the task of bearing children each year and being deprived of medical and surgical attention.

The master, Mr. Buckner, along with several of his relatives had purchased a large tract of land in Green County, Kentucky and by a custom or tradition as Dr. Buckner remembers; land owners that owned no slaves were considered “Po’ White Trash” and were scarcely recognized as citizens within the state of Kentucky.

Another tradition prevailed, that slave children should be presented to the master’s young sons and daughters and become their special property even in childhood.  Adherring to that tradition the child, George Washington Buckner became the slave of young “Mars” Dickie Buckner, and although the two children were nearly the same age the little mulatto boy was obedient to the wishes of the little master.  Indeed, the slave child cared for the Caucasian boy’s clothing, polished his boots, put away his toys and was his playmate and companion as well as his slave.

Sickness and suffering and even death visits alike the just and the unjust, and the loving sympathetic slave boy witnessed the suffering and death of his little white friend.  Then grief took possession of the little slave, he could not bear the sight of little Dick’s toys nor books not [TR:  nor?] clothing.  He recalls one harrowing experience after the death of little Dick Buckner.  George’s grandmother was a housekeeper and kitchen maid for the white family.  She was in the kitchen one late afternoon preparing the evening meal.  The master had taken his family for a visit in the neighborhood