“I can’t remember nothin’ else ’cause I was too young then and I’m too old now.”
OCT 18 19—
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Oliver Hill
1101 Kentucky Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 94
Oliver Hill is ninety-four years old, erect, walks briskly with the aid of a cane, only slightly hard of hearing and toothless.
He was born and lived in the state of Mississippi on the plantation of Alan Brooks where he said his father was an overseer and not a slave. Said his mother was a full-blooded Indian. (I have never talked to a Negro who did not claim to be part Indian.) He cannot read or write and made rather conflicting statements about the reason why. “White folks wouldn’t let us learn.” Later on in the conversation he said he went to school about one month when his “eyes got sore and they said he didn’t have to go no more.”
“I was nineteen years old when de wa’ begun. De white folks never tole us nothin’ ’bout what it was fo’ till after de surrender. Dey tole us then we was free. They didn’t give us nothin’.”
After the surrender most of the slaves left the plantations and were supported by the Bureau. In the case of Oliver Hill, this lasted five months and then he went back to his former master who gave him one-fifth of what he made working in the field. Alan Brooks grieved for the loss of his slaves but at no time were they under any compulsion to remain slaves. After a long time about half of them came back to work for pay.
The Ku Klux Klan was “de devil”, but about all they wanted, according to Oliver, was to “make a Democrat” of the ex-slaves. They were allowed to vote without any trouble, but “de Democrats robbed de vote. Yes’m I knowed they did.”
Concerning the present restricted suffrage, he thinks the colored people should be allowed to vote. In general, his attitude toward the white people is one of resentment. Frequent comments were:
“Dey won’t let de colored people bury in de same cemetery with de white people.”