I saw General Grant when he came to Little Rock. There was an old white man who had never been to Little Rock in his life. He said "I just had to come up here to see this great general that they are talking about."
Occupations
We always worked in the field in slave time. I don't know nothin about share cropping because I always did days work. I used to get four and five dollars a week for washing. But now they wants the young folks and they don't pay them five dollars for everything. I can't get a pension. Why you reckon they won't give me one. They don't understand that that little house I own doesn't even keep itself up. My daughter-in-law is good to me but she needs everything she makes. I can't get much to do now, and what little I gets, they don't pay me much for.
I don' remember nothin' else.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jennie Washington, DeValls Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
"My mother was a slave and my father too I recken. They belonged to Jack Walton when I remembered. I was born at St. Charles. My mother died in time of the war at St. Louis. This is whut I remembers. My mother was sold twice. The Prices owned her and the Wakefields owned her before she was owned by old Jack Walton. I was the youngest child. I had one brother went to war and he drawed a pension long as he lived. We children all got scattered out. Mr. Walton bout the age of my father and he said some day all these niggers be set free and warnt long fore they sho was. I had one older sister I recollect mighty well. My mother named Fannie, my father named Abe Walton. He had a young master James Walton.
"When I was nuthin but a chile I remembers James dressed up like Ku Klux Klan and scared me. The old master sho did whoop him bout that. They take care of the little black children and feed em good an don't let em do too hard er work to stunt em so they take em off and sell em for a good price.
"I remembers the little old log house my granma and granpa way back over on the place stayed in till they died. We went back after the war and lived ten years on the same place. We lived close to the white folks in a bigger house.