"I reckon I was along eight or nine years old when freedom came. My oldest brother was twelve, and I was next to him. I must have been eight or nine—or maybe ten.
"My occupation since freedom has been farming and doing a little job work—anything I could git. Work by the day for mechanic and one thing and another. I know nothin' about no trade 'ceptin' what I have picked up. Never took no contracts 'ceptin' for building a fence or somethin' small like that. Mechanic's work I suppose calls for license."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Annie Johnson
804 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and I was four years old when the Civil War closed. My parents died when I was a baby and a white lady named Mrs. Mary Peters took me and raised me. They moved from there to Champaign, Illinois when I was about six years old. My mother died when I was born. Them white people only had two slaves, my mother and my father, and my father had run off with the Yankees. Mrs. Peters was their mistress. She died when I was eight years old and then I stayed with her sister. That was when I was up in Champaign.
"The sister's name was Mrs. Mary Smith. She just taught school here and there and around in different places, and I went around with her to take care of her children. That kept up until I was twenty years old. All of her traveling was in Illinois.
"I didn't get much schooling. I went to school a while and taken sore eyes. The doctor said if I continued to go to school, I would strain my eyes. After he told me that I quit. I learned enough to read the Bible and the newspaper and a little something like that, but I can't do much. My eyes is very weak yet.
"When I was twenty years old I married Henry Johnson, who was from Virginia. I met him in Champaign. We stayed in Champaign about two years. Then we came on down to St. Louis. He was just traveling 'round looking for work and staying wherever there was a job. Didn't have no home nor nothing. He was a candy maker by trade, but he did anything he could get to do. He's been dead for forty years now. He came down here, then went back to Champaign and died in Springfield, Illinois while I was here.
"I don't get no pension, don't get nothing. I get along by taking in a little washing now and then.