"They didn't expect anything but freedom. Some of them didn't have sense enough to secure a home for themselves. They didn't have no sense. Some of them wasn't eligible to speak for themselves. They wanted somebody to speak for them.
What They Got
"I don't know that they got anything.
Immediately After the War
"Right after the War, I stayed with the people that owned me and worked. They give me two dollars a month and my food and clothes. I stayed with them five years and then I quit. I had sense enough to quit and I went to work for wages. I got five dollars a month. And I thought that was a big salary. I didn't know no better. I learnt better by experience.
Negroes in Politics
"Just after the War, the Republicans used to have representatives at the state convention. After the Democrats got in power, they knocked all that in the head. Colored people used to be on juries. But they won't let them serve now. (Negroes served on local grand jury last year.)
"I knew one nigger politician in Georgia named I.B. Simons. He was a school-teacher. He never held any office. I knowed a nigger politician here by the name of John Bush. He had the United States Land Office. When the Democrats got in power they put him out. I knowed another fellow used to be here named Crockett Brown. He lived in Lee County, Arkansas. He was a Congressman. I don't know whether he ever got to the White House or not. I ain't never seen no account of it. I can't tell you all any more now.
Memories of Fred Douglass
"I knowed Fred Douglass. I shook hands with him and talked with him here in Little Rock. They give him the opera house. We had the first floor. The white folks had the gallery. That was when the Republicans were in power.