“My mother told me about seein’ the pateroles before the War and the Ku Klux Klan afterwards. She knowed them all right. She never talked much about the pateroles. It was mostly the Ku Klux. Neither of them never got after her. She said the Ku Klux used to come in by droves. She said the Ku Klux were dressed all in white—white caps and white hoods over their faces, and long white dresses. They come out mostly at night. They never did bother her, but they bothered others ’round her that she knowed about. Sometimes they would take people out and beat them and do ’round with them. But she never did know just what it was they did and just what they did it for. You see, her white folks was particular and didn’t talk much before her. So many colored folks learnt things because they eavesdropped their white folks, but mother didn’t do that. She didn’t learn nothin’ but what they talked before her, and they were careful. But they protected her. They never did allow nobody to bother her no way.
“She was a Baptist. She belonged to the white folks’ church before she was freed. Then she joined the Methodist church at Benton because there wasn’t no other church there. But she was a full-blood Baptist.”
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Clark Hill
715 E. 17th Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 82
“Good morning. My name is Clark Hill. My name goes by my white folks. I was born in Georgia—in Americus, Georgia. My old master was Will G. Hill and they called my young master Bud. I never did know what his name was—they just called him Bud.
“It was my job to sweep the yard, keep smoke on the meat and fire under the kiln. Yes mam! Old master had a big orchard and he dried all the fruit in the kiln—peaches, apples, and pears. Then he had lots a watermelons too. When they got ripe they’d get all the childun big enough to tote a melon and we’d carry ’em to the house. I would like to be with my white folks now.
“Old master raised pigeons too and it used to be my job to go down to the pigeon house and ketch the squalls (squabs).
“I used to go to church with my white folks too. I was the gate opener. They put me on the little seat at the back of the carriage. When we got there they’d let us childun sit in the back. The preacher would tell us to obey our master and not take anything that belonged to him.
“Oh, my white folks was good to me. He never hit me but once and that was one time when my brother went into the kitchen, went into some peas the cook had and she told on him. Old master come down and told my brother to eat the whole dish full. He never hit him or nothin’ but just stood there and made him eat ’em. I thought I’d help him out a little and said to my brother, ‘Give me some.’ Old master just took his walking stick and hit me over the head, and that’s the onliest time he ever hit me.
“When you got big enough to marry and was courtin’ a woman on another plantation, you couldn’t bring her home with you. Old master would marry you. He’d say ‘I give this man to you’ and say ‘Clark, I give this woman to you and now you is man and wife.’ They never had no book of matrimony—if they did I never seen it. Then you could go over to see her every Saturday and stay all night.