"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house—not so good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that nobody would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between farming. I still farm. They hire mostly by the day—day labor. Them two things and my dis'bility is making it mighty hard for me to live. I work at any jobs I can get.
"I signed up for the Old Age Pension. They said I couldn't work, I was too old. I wanted to work on the government work. I never got nothing. I don't get no kind of help. I thought I didn't know how to get into the Old Age Pension reason I didn't get it. It would help keep in wood this wet weather when work is scarce."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Walter Jones,
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 72
"My father run away scared of the Yankees. He got excited and left. My mother didn't want him to leave her. She was crying when he left. My father belong to the Wilsons. Mother was sold on the block in Richmond, Virginia when she was twelve years old and never seen her mother again. Mother belong to Charles Hunt. Her name was Lucy Hunt. She married three times. Charles Hunt went to market to buy slaves. We lived in Hardeman County, Tennessee when I was born but he sent us to Mississippi. She worked in the field then but before then she was a house girl. No, she was black. We are all African.
"I got eight children. When my wife died they finished scattering out. I come here from Grand Junction, Mississippi. I eat breakfast on Christmas day 1883 at Forrest City and spent the day at Hazen. I come with friends. We paid our own ways. We come on the train and boat and walked some.
"No, I don't take stock in voting. I never did. I have voted so long ago I forgot it all.
"The biggest thing I can tell you ever happened to us more than I told you was in 1878 I had yellow fever. Dr. Milton Pruitt come to see me. The next day his brother come to see me. Dr. Milton died the next day. I got well. At Grand Junction both black and white died. Some of both color got well. A lot of people died.
"How am I making a living? I don't make one. Mr. Ashly lets me live in a house and gives me scrap meat. I bottom chairs or do what I can. I past heavy work. The Welfare don't help me. I farmed, railroaded nearly all my life. Public work this last few years."