For her old-time "white fokes", "Aunt" Frances entertains an almost worshipful memory. Also, in her old age, she reflects the superstitious type of her race.
Being so young when freedom was declared, emancipation did not have as much significance for "Aunt" Frances as it did for the older colored people. In truth, she had no true conception of what it "wuz all about" until several years later. But she does know that she had better food and clothes before the slaves were freed than she had in the years immediately following.
She is deeply religious, as most ex-slaves are, but—as typical of the majority of aged Negroes—associates "hants" and superstition with her religion.
[HW: Dist 6
Ex-Slave #64]
Mary A. Crawford
Re-Search Worker
CHARLIE KING—EX-SLAVE
Interviewed
435 E. Taylor Street, Griffin, Georgia
September 16, 1936
Charlie was born in Sandtown, (now Woodbury) Meriwether County, Georgia, eighty-five or six years ago. He does not know his exact age because his "age got burned up" when the house in which his parents lived was burned to the ground.
The old man's parents, Ned and Ann King, [TR: "were slaves of" crossed out] Mr. John King, who owned a big plantation near Sandtown [TR: "also about two hundred slaves" crossed out]. [TR: HW corrections are too faint to read.]
Charlie's parents were married by the "broom stick ceremony." The Master and Mistress were present at the wedding. The broom was laid down on the floor, the couple held each other's hands and stepped backward over it, then the Master told the crowd that the couple were man and wife.