“The way that Patty Rollers was.  The mosters paid somebody.  Always somebody round wantin’ a job like that.  Mars White was his own overseer.  All round there was good livers.  They worked long wid the slaves.  Some of the slaves would race.  Papa would race.  He wanted to race all time.  Grandma cooked for all of us.  They had a stone chimney in the kitchen.  Big old hearth way out in front.  Made outer stone too.  We all et the same victuals long as Mars White lived.  Then I left.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  James Dickey, Marianna, Arkansas
Age:  68
[May 31 1939]

“I don’t know much to tell about my folks.  My parents died when I was young.  Mother died when I was twelve and father when I was seven years old.  Great-grandma was an Indian squaw.  My father’s pa was his young master.  His old master was named George Dickey.  The young master was John Dickey.  I reckon to start with my mother had a husband.  She had twelve children but the last seven was by my pa.  He was lighter than I am and paler.  This red is Indian in me.  I know how he looked and how she looked too.  The young master never married.  He had some brothers.  My father lived with us and his pa was there too some.  I don’t know what become of John Dickey but my pa was buried at Mt.  Tursey Cemetery.  It was a sorter mixed burying grown (ground) but at a white church.  Mother come here and was buried at Cat Island in a colored church cemetery.

“I farmed in Mississippi, then I come to Miller Lumber Company and I worked with them forty-two years.  I worked at Marked Tree, then they sent me here (Marianna).

“I voted in Caruthersville, Missouri last I voted.  It don’t do much good to vote.  I am too old to vote.  I never voted in Arkansas.  I voted some in Mississippi but not regular.

“Times is hard.  So many white women do their own cooking and washing till it don’t leave no work fer the colored folks.  The lumber work is gone fer good.

“The present generation is going back’ards.  For awhile it looked like they was rising—­I’m speaking morally.  They going back down in a hurry.  Drinking and doing all kinds of devilment.  The race is going back’ard now.  Seems like everybody could see that when whiskey come back in.

“I got high blood pressure.  I do a little work.  I watch on Sunday at the mills.  I don’t get no help from the Gover’ment.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Benjamin Diggs
                    420 N. Cypress, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  79

“I was born in 1859 in North Carolina.  Oh, sure, I remember when the Yankees come through.  They said they done right smart of damage.  I remember goin’ by a place where they had burned it down.  They didn’t do nothin’ to my white folks ’cept took the stock.

“The Lyles was my white folks.  They called her Polly Lyles.  Oh, they was good to us.  My mother and her sister and another colored woman and we children all belonged to one set of people—­Miss Polly Lyles; and my father belonged to the Diggs.