“What wages do you generally get for your work?”
“Since about ’68, we’ve been getting about two bits a day—that’s twenty cents. Then there are some people that work by the month, and at the end of the month they are either put off or cheated out of their money entirely. Property and goods are worth nothing to a black man there. He can’t get his price for them; he gets just what the white man chooses to give him. Some people who raise from ten to fifteen bales of cotton sometimes have hardly enough to cover their body and feet. This goes on while the white man gets the price he asks for his goods. This is unfair, and as long as we pay taxes we want justice, right, and equality before the people.”
“What taxes do you pay?”
“A man that owns a house and lot has to pay about twenty-six dollars a year; and if he has a mule worth about one hundred and fifty dollars they tax him two dollars and a half extra. If they see you have money—say you made three thousand dollars—you’d soon see some bill about taxes, land lease and the other coming in for about two thousand of it. They charge a black man thirteen dollars where they would only charge a white man one or two. Now, there’s a man,” pointing to a portly old fellow, “who had to run away from his house, farm, and all. It is for this we leave Arkansas. We want freedom, and I say, ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ We took up arms and fought for our country, so we ought to have our rights.”
“How about the schooling you receive?”
“We can’t vote, still we have to pay taxes to support schools for the others. I got my education in New Orleans and paid for it, too. I have six children, and though I pay taxes not one of them has any schooling from the public schools. The taxes and rent are so heavy that the children have to work when they are as young as ten years. That’s the way it is down there.”
“Did you have any teachers from the North?”
“There were some teachers from the North who came down there, but they were run out. They were paid so badly and treated so mean that they had to go.”
“What county did you live in?”
“Phillips County.”