"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and forest fires broke out often.
"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We gambled and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good raising. I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord hailed me in wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing in his sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to teach a Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader. Three months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop Lee, Johnson, Copeland—all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated minister.
"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the home land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some work or a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins,
R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas
Age: 80
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil War). I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension and he sends me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount whatever he can spare me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I pick cotton some last year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got to raining and so cold my granddaughter said it would make me sick.
"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A. B. Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was name Liddy Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to Tennessee from Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than ten miles apart. Then they got consent and got married. I don't know how they struck up together.
"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins' house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His daughter lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home from the war dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The only little children on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no kin but jus' like twins. Master would call us up and stick his finger in biscuits and pour molasses in the hole. That was sure good eating. The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We walked four miles. He'd tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed over there much and the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come. They let her stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to come home. Me and papa always walked.
"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't know what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the best, somebody said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six years trying to do as well as they had done in slavery. It was years 'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the hardest—eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.