“Dey don’t like it if a colored man speak to a white woman.”
“Dey kill a colored man and de law don’t do nothin’ ’bout it.”
“Old Man Brooks” when referring to his former master.
He lived with the Brooks family for five years after freedom, and seems to have been rather a favored one with not much to do but “ride around” and going to dances and parties at night. When Alan Brooks died he left Oliver $600 in cash, a cow and calf, horse, saddle and bridle and two hogs. He went to live with his father taking his wife whom he had married at the age of twenty-one.
As soon as the inheritance was gone, the scene changed. In his words, “I thought it gwine last forever.” But it didn’t and then he began to hold a succession of jobs—field hand, sorghum maker, basket weaver, gardener and railway laborer—until he was too old to work. Now he is supported by the Welfare Department and the help a daughter and granddaughter can give.
About the younger generation—“I don’t know what gwine come of ’em. The whites is as bad as the blacks.” He thinks that present conditions are caused by the sinfulness of the people.
There were no slave uprisings but sometimes when they did not work fast enough or do the task right, they were “whupped” by the overseer and given no food until it was done right.
Oliver came to Arkansas in 1910. He has had two wives and “de Lawd took both of ’em.” His second wife was “’ligious” and they “got along fine.” All in all he had a good time during his active days “and didn’t have no trouble with de white folks”. He does not believe God ever intended some of the people to be slaves.