"I didn't know bout freedom and I didn't care bout it. They didn't give no land nor no mules away as I ever know'd of.
"The Ku Klux never come on our place. I heard about em all the time. I seen em in the road. They look like hants.
"I been farming all my life. I come here to farm. Better land and no fence law.
"I come to 'ply to the P.W.A. today. That is the very reason you caught me in town today."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Crosby
1216 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 76
"Good morning. I don't know anybody 'round here that was born in slavery times 'cept me. I don't know exactly when I was born in Georgia but I can remember my mama said her old master, Mat Fields, sent my father and all the other men folks to Arkansas the second year of the war. After the war, I remember there was a colored man named Mose come from Mississippi to Georgia and told the colored folks they could shake money off the trees in Mississippi. Of course they was just ignorant as cattle and they believed him. I know I thought what a good time I would have. I can remember seeing old master crying cause his colored folks all leaving, but Mose emigrated all of us to Mississippi.
"He kept emigrating folks over there till he like to got killed. The white people give him a stayaway and told him not to come back, but he sure did get some colored folks out of Georgia.
"I 'member they said the war was to free the niggers. They called it the Civil War. I never did know why they called it that. I can't 'member things like I used to.