"No, Miss I always had the price of a marriage license in my pocket, but somehow I never married."
In answer to inquiry as to religion, Jabbo replied:
"Miss, I am a Methodist, but there's only one religion. You have to be pure in heart to see Him, because He said so, and to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you."
Continuing about religion Jabbo said:
"God gave it to Adam and took it away from Adam and gave it to Noah, and you know, Miss, Noah had three sons, and when Noah got drunk on wine, one of his sons laughed at him, and the other two took a sheet and walked backwards and threw it over Noah. Noah told the one who laughed, 'you children will be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other's two children, and they will be known by their hair and their skin being dark,' so, Miss, there we are, and that is the way God meant us to be. We have always had to follow the white folks and do what we saw them do, and that's all there is to it. You just can't get away from what the Lord said."
Jabbo said he would like "to go back to the good old days, 'though there was good folks and there was mean folks, then too, just like there is today."
Bibliography: Personal interview by the writer with Gus Rogers, ex-slave, better known as "Jabbo."
[Janie Scott]
Personal interview with Janie Scott
255 South Lawrence Street, Mobile, Alabama
—Mary A. Poole, Mobile, Alabama
SLAVE CA'LINE SOLD FER A SACK O' SALT