“Things has got so now everything is in politics.  Some votes cause they want their friends in office and some don’t take no interest.

“Some of the younger generation is prospering very well and some are goin’ kinda slow.  Some is goin’ take another growth.  The schoolin’ they is gittin’ is helpin’ to build ’em up.

“Yes mam, I use to be strong and I have done a heap of work in my life.  Cotton and corn was the business, the white man had the land and the money and we had to work to get some of that money.

“I remember when the Ku Klux was right bad in Louisiana.  I never did see any—­I didn’t try to see ’em.  I know I heard that they went to a school house and broke up a negro convention.  They called for a colored man named Peck and when he come out they killed him and one white man got killed.  They had a right smart little scrummage, and I know the colored people ran off and went to Kansas.

“The fust man I ever seed killed was one time a colored man’s dog got in another colored man’s field and ate his roasting ears, it made him so mad he shot the dog and then the man what owned the dog killed the other man.  I never did know what the punishment was.

“Since I have become afflicted (I’m ruptured) I can’t do no work any more.  I can’t remember anything else.  If I had time to study I might think of something else.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Hammett Dell, Brasfield, Arkansas
Age:  90
[—­ —­ 1937]

[TR:  Some word pronunciation was marked in this interview.  Letters surrounded by [] represent long vowels.]

“I was born in Tennessee, 10 miles from Murfreesboro.  They call it now Releford.  I was born October 12, 1847.  I stayed wid old master till he died.  I was bout thirty-five years old.  He lernt me a good trade, brick layin’.  He give me everything I needed and more.  After the war he took me by the old brass lamp wid twisted wick—­it was made round—­and lernt me outer the Blue Back Speller and Rithmetic.  The spelling book had readin’ in it.  Lady ain’t you seed one yit?  Then I lernt outer Rays Rithmetic and McGuffeys Reader.  Old master say it ginst the law to teach slaves foe the war.  Dat what he said, it was ginst the law to educate a nigger slave.  The white folks schools was pay foe the war.

“My old master had a small farm.  His wife died.  He never married no more.  I caint member her name.  She died when I was a little bitter of a boy.  They had a putty large family.  There was Marion, William, Fletcher, John, Miss Nancy, Miss Claricy, Miss Betsy.  I think that all.  The older childern raised up the little ones.  My master named Mars Pleasant White.  Long as I stayed wid him I had a plenty to eat an’ wear an’ a dollar to spend.  I had no sense to save a cent for a old day.  Mars White was a good man if ever one lived.  He was a good man.  Four old darkies all Mars White had.  They was