You ask does I have stripes on my back from bein beat in slave’y times?  No maam.  I was always a good boy and smart boy raised in the same yard with the little white chillun.  You says Sarah told you that las’ year?  Missy you mus’ be mistaken.  I was whipped once or twice but I needed it then or ol’ master wouldn’t a whipped me an he never did leave no stripes on me.  My old master was good to all his niggers and I’m tellin you I was raised up with his chullun an him and old mistress was good to me.  All we little black chillun et out of the boilin’ pot an every Sunday mornin’ we had hot biscuit and butter for breakfact.  No maam my old master was always good to his niggers.

(Above is as exactly told by Tom Douglas with the exception that he used the word Marster, for master; wuz for was, tuh for to; ah for I and other quaint expressions—­these were omitted because of instruction in Bulletin received August 7th, 1937.)

Taken down word for word.  August 11, 1937.

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Sebert Douglas
                    610 Catalpa Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  82

“I was born in Lebanon, Kentucky.  Gover Hood was my old master.  His wife’s name was Ann Hood.

“I ’member Morgan’s Raid.  I don’t ’member what year it was but I ’member a right smart about it.  Cumberland Gap was where they met.

“The Rebs and Yankees both come and took things from old master.  I ’member three horses they taken well.  Yankees had tents in the yard.  They was right in the yard right in front of the Methodist church.

“My mother was Mrs. Hood’s slave, and when she married she took my mother along and I was born on her place.

“I was the carriage boy in slave times.  My father did the driving and I was the waitin’ boy.  I opened the gates.

“I ’member Billy Chandler and Lewis Rodman run off and j’ined the Yankees but they come back after the War was over.

“Paddyrollers was about the same as the Ku Klux.  The Ku Klux would take the roof off the colored folks’ houses and take their bedding and make ’em go back where they come from.

“We stayed right there with old master for two or three years, then we went to the country and farmed for ourselves.

“I went to school just long enough to read and write.  I never seed no use for figgers till I married and went to farmin’.

“Since I been in Pine Bluff I done mill work.  I was a sash and door man.

“I used to vote every election till Hoover, but I never held any office.

“The younger generation is bad medicine.  Can’t tell what’s gwine come of ’em!”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Henry Doyl, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  Will be 74
Feb. 2, 1938

“I was born in Hardeman County near Bolivar, Tennessee.  My mother’s moster was Bryant Cox and his wife was Miss Neely Cox.  My mother was Dilly Cox.  Two things I remembers tinctly that took place in my childhood:  that was when my mother married George Doyl.  I was raised by a stepfather.  Miss Neely told my mother she was going to sell me and put me in her pocket.  She told her that more’n one time.  I recollect that.