“My husband was Samuel B. Davis, publisher of the Athens Clipper.  I published this newspaper myself for a short while after his death, then sold it.  We didn’t have a big wedding, just a very simple one at my mother’s house.  I was married in a nice white dress, but it was nothing fancy.  Our two children were born dead.  Once I had a nice home, beautifully furnished.  All I have left of it is this old house and my good bedroom suite.  The rest of my possessions have gotten away from me during my continued illness.

“I often think of Abraham Lincoln; he did a good deed for my race.  Jeff Davis was a good man and, no doubt, he thought he was doing the right thing.  Booker T. Washington was a man of brilliant mind, but he was radically wrong in many of his views pertaining to education of the black race.  He lectured here once, but I didn’t bother to hear him speak.

“Yes Mam, indeed I had rather be free.  Oh! religion is glorious.  If God has set you free from the bonds and penalties of sin, I think you ought to live up to your Lord’s commands.  I dearly love to go to church and hear the preacher tell of God.  It gives me strength to live until He is ready for me to go.

“Now, Miss, I hope I have told you what you wanted to know, but I must admit the things that took place way back there are rather vague in my mind.  I’m an old woman and my mind is not as clear as it once was.  Next week, if I am strong enough to make the trip, I am going to spend the day with Mary Colbert, and go over the old times you and I have discussed.  She remembers them better than I do, because she is older.”

Whitley
[HW:  Unedited
Atlanta]
E. Driskell

EX-SLAVE MOSE DAVIS
[APR 8 1937]

In one of Atlanta’s many alleys lives Mose Davis, an ex-slave who was born on a very large plantation 12 miles from Perry, Georgia.  His master was Colonel Davis, a very rich old man, who owned a large number of slaves in addition to his vast property holdings.  Mose Davis says that all the buildings on this plantation were whitewashed, the lime having been secured from a corner of the plantation known as “the lime sink”.  Colonel Davis had a large family and so he had to have a large house to accommodate these members.  The mansion, as it was called, was a great big three-storied affair surrounded by a thick growth of cedar trees.

Mose’s parents, Jennie and January Davis, had always been the property of the Davis family, naturally he and his two brothers and two sisters never knew any other master than “The Old Colonel”.

Mr. Davis says that the first thing he remembers of his parents is being whipped by his mother who had tied him to the bed to prevent his running away.  His first recollection of his father is seeing him take a drink of whiskey from a five gallon jug.  When asked if this was’nt against the plantation rules “Uncle Mose” replied:  “The Colonel was one of the biggest devils you ever seen—­he’s the one that started my daddy to drinking.  Sometimes he used to come to our house to git a drink hisself”.