"After surrender my folks left the Rosboroughs right straight and moved clost to Woodlawn. My oldes' hired out in Shreveport. When they asks him what he's worth, he told them he didn't know, but he was allus worth a heap of money when anyone wanted to buy him from the Rosboroughs.
"The Ku Kluxers come to our house in Woodlawn, and I got scart and crawled under the bed. They told mammy they wasn't gwine hurt her, but jus' wanted water to drink. They didn't call each other by names. When the head man spoke to any of them he'd say, Number 1, or Number 2, and like that.
"I thunk I heared ghosts on the Driscoll place once, up in the loft of the house. I heared them plain as day. My step-pa done die there and might of been his ghost. We moved away right straight, and old man Driscoll had to burn that house down after that, 'cause wouldn't none the darkies live in it.
"The only time I voted was when they put whiskey out. I heared a white man one time in Marshall, makin' a speech on the square. He said he was gwine tell us darkies why they didn't low us to vote. He didn't tell us, 'cause the law come out and made him git out the wagon and leave.
"This young race is sho' livin' fast, but I guess they's all right. Things is jes' different now to when I was a boy. When I was a boy, folks didn't mind helpin' one 'nother, but now they is in too big a hurry to pay you any mind.
JOHN JAMES, 78, was born a slave to John Chapman, on a large plantation in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. John took the name of his father, who was owned by John James. John and his mother stayed with Mr. Chapman for six years after they were freed, then John went to Missouri, where he worked for the M. K. & T. Railroad for twenty years. He then came to Texas, and now lives at 315 S. Jennings Ave., in Fort Worth.
"I doesn't have so much mind for slavery days, 'cause I's too young then, but I 'members when surrender come and some befo' dat. I 'members my mammy lef' me in de nursery with all de other cullud babies when she go work in de field. De old nurse, Jane, tooks care of us.