"I have voted. I vote if I'm needed. The white folks country and they been runnin' it. I don't want no enemies. They been good to me. I got no egercation much. I sorter follows bout votin'. We look to the white folks to look after our welfare.
"I get $8.00 and commodities. I work all I can git to do."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Cella Perkins
Marvell and Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 67
"I was born close to Macon, Georgia. Mama's old mistress, Miss Mari (Maree) Beth Woods, brung her there from fifteen miles outer Atlanta.
"After emancipation Miss Mari Beth's husband got killed. A horse kicked him to death. It shyed at something and it run in front of the horse. He held the horse so it couldn't run. It kicked the foot board clean off, kicked him in the stomach. His boy crawled out of the buggy. That's the way we knowed how it happened. She didn't hurt the boy. His name was Benjamin Woods.
"Pa went to war with his master and he never come back to mama. She never heard from him after freedom. He got captured and got to be a soldier and went 'way off. She didn't never know if he got killed or lost his way back home.
"Mama cooked and kept up the house. Miss Mari Beth kept a boarding house in Macon till way after I was a big girl. I stood on a box and washed dishes and dried them for mama.
"Mr. Ben was grown when we come to Arkansas. He got his ma to go to Kentucky with him and I heard about Arkansas. Me and mama come to Palestine. We come in a crowd. A man give us tickets and we come by our lone selves till we got to Tennessee. A big crowd come from Dyersburg, Tennessee. Ma got to talking and found out we was headed fo' the same place in Arkansas.