"I 'lieve they ought to have gived us somethin' when we was freed, but they turned us out to graze or starve. Most of the white people turned the Negroes slam loose. We stayed a year with missis and then she married and her husband had his own workers and told us to git out. We worked for twenty and thirty cents a day then, and I fin'ly got a place with Dr. L.J. Conroe. But after the war the Negro had a hard struggle, 'cause he was turned loose jus' like he came into the world and no education or 'sperience.
"If the Negro wanted to vote the Klu Kluxes was right there to keep him from votin'. Negroes was 'fraid to git out and try to 'xert they freedom. They'd ride up by a Negro and shoot him jus' like a wild hawg and never a word said or done 'bout it.
"I's farmed and makin' a livin' is 'bout all. I come over here in Madison County and rents from B.F. Young, clost to Midway and gits me a few cows. I been right round here ever since. I lives round with my chillen now, 'cause I's gittin' too old to work.
"This young bunch of Negroes is all right some ways, but they won't tell the truth. They isn't raised like the white folks raised us. If we didn't tell the truth our massa'd tear us all to pieces. Of course, they is educated now and can get 'most any kind of work, some of them, what we couldn't.
ELIZA HOLMAN, 82, was born a slave of the Rev. John Applewhite, near Clinton, Mississippi. In 1861 they came to Texas, settling near Decatur. Eliza now lives at 2507 Clinton Ave., Fort Worth, Texas.
"Talk 'bout de past from de time I 'members till now, slave days and all? Dat not so hard. I knows what de past am, but what to come, dat am different. Dey says, 'Let de past be de guide for de future,' but if you don't know de future road, hows you gwine guide? I's sho' glad to tell you all I 'members, but dat am a long 'memberance.
"I know I's past 80, for sho', and maybe more, 'cause I's old 'nough to 'member befo' de war starts. I 'members when de massa move to Texas by de ox team and dat am some trip! Dey loads de wagon till dere ain't no more room and den sticks we'uns in, and we walks some of de time, too.