"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!"