Marriage
"Slaves had to get the consent of their masters to marry. Sometimes masters would want them to go and would even buy the woman they wanted to keep them contented on the plantation. Sometimes the masters wouldn't do anything but let them visit. They would marry—what they called marriage in those days—and the husband would have to git permission from his master to go visit his wife and git permission from her master to come there. He would go on Saturday night and get back in time for his work on Monday morning. It was just like raising stock and mating it.
"I have been married fifty-one years. I have been married twice though. My first wife died in 1900. I have been married to my second wife thirty-four years last April. Those were real marriages.
Opinions
"I can't say much along these lines. The chance to make a living looks so dark I can't see much of a future. Things seem to be getting worse. Nearly everybody I talk with, white or colored, seems to think the same. It is like Senator Glass said. 'If Congress would close up and go home at once, times would get better.' People don't know what kind of fool law Congress is going to make and they are not going to spend much money. I don't think Mr. Roosevelt's pump priming will do much good because you must keep adding to it or it will go away.
"I don't think much of the young people. These nineteenth or twentieth century Negroes is something fierce I'm telling you.
Vocational Experiences
"I am a carpenter. I wish I wasn't. The depression has made it so that the Negroes get very little to do. What they have they give to their own people. They don't have much for nobody. Even if the nigger gets something, he gets very little out of it. But the main trouble is there isn't anything to do.
"I have been a carpenter for fifty-four years. I have been here fifty-one years. I have never had no trouble earning a living till now. I can't do it now. The biggest obstacle of the success of the Negro carpenter is that Negroes don't have the money to build with. They must get the money from the white man. The white man, on the other hand, if he lets out the money for the building, has the say-so on who will do it, and he naturally picks out another white man. That keeps the majority of Negroes out of work as far as carpentry is concerned. It does in a time like this. When times is better, the white man does not need to be so tight, and he can divide up."