"I went to work as janitor at Merril School to take the regular janitor's place for just two months and how long you reckon I stayed there? Twenty years. Then I come here and sit down and haven't done anything since.
"The first school I went to was in the First Baptist Church on Pullen Street. They had it there till they could put up a building.
"I went to nine different teachers and all of em was white. They was sent here from the North. We studied McGuffy's reader and you stayed with it till you learned it. I got it till today—in my head you understand.
"Sure, Lord, I used to vote and hold ever' kind of office. Used to be justice of the peace six years. I said I been in everthing but a bull fight.
"I've traveled ever' place—Niagara Falls, Toronto, Canada. I been in two World's Fairs and in several inaugurations. Professor Cheney says I know more history than any the teachers at the college."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Eliza Jones
610 E. Eighteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 89
"Yes ma'am, this is Eliza. I was born in slave times and I knowed how to work good.
"You know I was grown in time of the War 'cause I married the first year of freedom.