Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Richard Crump
                    1801 Gaines Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  82

[HW:  Father Takes a “Deadening”]

“I was born right here in Aberdeen, Mississippi about five miles from the town on the east side of the Tom Bigbee River in Monroe County, Mississippi.

“My father’s name was Richard Crump.  My mother was named Emily Crump.  My grandmother on my father’s side was named Susan Crump.  My mother came from Middleton, Tennessee.  But I don’t know nothing about any of her people.  My father said he come from South Carolina when he was a boy eight or ten years old.  That was way before I was born.  They brought him to Mississippi from South Carolina.

“My father’s master was old man Johnnie Crump.  My mistress was named Nina Crump.  That was Johnnie Crump’s wife.  My mars had four boys to my remembrance.  One was named Wess, one was named Rufe, one was named Joe, and one was named Johnnie.  He had a girl named Annie and one named Lulu.

“My mother was the mother of thirteen children.  I am the onliest one living, that I know of.  The way they gwine with us now, I ain’t goin’ a be here long.  Just got four dollars to pay rent and bills and git somethin’ to eat for a month.  You don’t git nothin’ much when you git the commodities—­no grease to cook with.

“We never had no trouble much when I was coming along.  My mars was a pretty good old man.  He didn’t allow no overseer to whip his slaves.  The overseer couldn’t whip my old mother anyhow because she was a kind of bully and she would git back in a corner with a hoe and dare him in.  And he wouldn’t go in neither.

“My grandmother had three or four sons.  One was name Nels Crump, another was named Miles and another was named Henry and another Jim.  She had two or three more but I can’t think of them.  They died before I was old enough to know anything.  Then she had two or three daughters.  One was named Lottie.  She had another one but I can’t think of her name.  I was so little.  All of them are dead now.  All of my people are dead but me.  They are trying to find a sister of mine, but I ain’t found her yet.  She oughter be down here by Forrest City somewheres.  But there ain’t nobody here that I know about but me.  And the way they’re carryin’ them now I ain’t goin’ to be here long.  All of them people you hear me talk about, they’re supposed to be dead.

“I was born in 1858.  At least the old man told me that.  I mean my father of course.  The first thing I knowed anything about was picking cotton.  I was a little bitty old fellow with a little sack hangin’ at my side.  I was pickin’ beside my mother.  They would grab us sometimes when we didn’t pick right.  Shake us and pull our ears.

“I didn’t know anything about sellin’ and buying.  I never was sold.

“The next thing I remember was being told I was free.  My daddy said old mars told them they were free.  I didn’t hear him tell it myself.  They come ’round on a Monday morning and told papa and the rest that they were free as he was and that they could go if they wanted to or they could stay, ’cause they were free as he was and didn’t have no master no more, didn’t have no one to domineer over them no more.