“My folks was livin’ in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin’. We sure was scared of em. Mighty nigh to death. When freedom come on the niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers. Sometimes a white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be havin’ preachin’ here come the Ku Klux and run em clear out. If they hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped several. They sure had to be mighty particular what they said in the preachin’. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn’t no use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode the country every night for I don’t know how long and that all niggers talked bout.
“My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.
“My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They didn’t allow white men to take em off so a white man come and stay round shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to Memphis, then we got on a big boat. No, ma’am, we didn’t come on no freight train. We got off at White Hall Landing. They got off all long the river. We worked on wages out here. Pa wanted to go to Mississippi. We went and made eighteen bales cotton and got cheated out of all we made. We never got a cent. The man cheated us was Mr. Harris close to Trotter’s Landing.
“Mr. Anderson, the poor white man we worked for, jumped in the river and drowned his self. The turns (returns) didn’t come in for the first batch we sold at all, then when the turns come they said we done took it up—owed it all. We knowed we hadn’t took it up but couldn’t get nothin’. We come back to Arkansas.
“I been to Detroit, short time, and been way, but I comes back.
“I forgot to say this: My mammy was born in South Carolina. Marbuts owned her and sold her. My pa lived to be 114 or 115 years old. He died in Arkansas. She did too.
“Of course I don’t vote! Women ain’t got no business runnin’ the government!
“I nursed, worked in the field. When I was a slave they raised a little cotton in Georgia but mostly corn. I chopped cotton and thinned out corn.
“The present times is too fast. Somethin’ goin’ to happen. The present generation too fast. Folks racin’. Ridin’ in cars too fast. They ain’t kind no more.
“I rent a house where I can and I get $10.00 from the government. That all the support I got. I farmed in the field mighty hard and lost all we had.”