“After Dick Fletcher died, his wife and his two children fetched us back—­fetched us back in a covered wagon.

“I am a Arkansas man.  Was raised here.  I am very well known here, too.  Some years after that she turned us loose.  I can’t remember just how many years it was, but it was a good many.

Right After the War

“After Mrs. Fletcher turned us loose, we worked with some families.  I was working by the year.  If I broke anything they took it out of my wages.  If I broke a plow they would charge me for it.  I was working for niggers.  I can’t remember how much they paid, but it wasn’t anything when they got through taking out.  I’m dogged if I know how much they were supposed to pay; it has been so long.  But I know that if I broke anything—­a tool or something—­they charged me for it.  I didn’t have much at the end of the year.  It would take me a lifetime to make anything if I had to do that.

Patrollers

“I have been out in the bushes when the pateroles would come up and gone into log houses and get niggers and whip their asses.  They would surround all the niggers and make them go into the house where they could whip them as much as they wanted to.  All that is been years and years ago.  I never seen any niggers get away from them.  I have heared of them getting away, but if they did I never knowed it.

Ku Klux Klan

“I heared of the Ku Klux, but they never bothered me.  I never saw them do anything to anybody.

Recollections Relating to Parents

“I don’t know who my parents were, but it seems like I heard them say my father was a white man, and I seen to remember that they said my mother was a dark woman.

Opinions

“The young people today ain’t worth a shit.  These young people going to school don’t mean good to nobody.  They dance all the night and all the time, and do everything else.  That man across the street runs a whiskey house where they dance and do everything they’re big enough to do.  They ain’t worth nothing.”

Interviewer:  Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed:  Sarah Douglas
                    Route 2, Box 19-A, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age:  82?

[Illustration:  Sarah and Sam Douglas] [TR:  The Library of Congress photo archive notes “‘Tom’ written in pencil above ‘Sam’ in title.”]

“I was born in Alabama.  I don’t know when though.  I did not find out when I was born because old miss never told me.  My ma died when I was real small and my old miss raised me.  I had a hard time of my life.  I slept on the floor just like a cat—­anywhere I laid down I slept.  In winter I slept on rags.  If I got sick old miss would give me plenty of medicine because she wanted me to stay well in order to work.  My old master was name John Buffett and old misses name was Eddie Buffett.  She would fix my bread and licker in a tin lid and shove it to me on the floor.  I never ate at the table until I was twelve and that was after freedom.