"I used to vote. I never had no trouble about it.
"They tried to whip me once since freedom, but not about votin'. A man
tried to whip me down in Stoneville because another man give me a drink.
He tried to cut me with his knife. I knocked him down. I told him I
could kill him, but I just didn't want to. While I was swearing out a
warrant to get him arrested, he went and got a gun somewheres. He came
right on in with his pistol and struck me with it. I knocked him down
again, and he was dead for twenty-five minutes. They didn't have to go
nowheres to serve the warrant on him. Nobody did anything to me about
it.
"I come to Little Rock fifty years ago or more. I farmed as long as I
was able. Doctor stopped me when I began to fall out.
"I cooked for Dr. Stone and his wife for ten years in Greenville,
Mississippi. Then I come to Pine Bluff on a vacation. The next time they
give me a vacation, I stayed away for eleven years. I went to get some
money Dr. Stone owed me for some work I had done for him once and he
wanted me to come back and cook again. I didn't do that and he died
without paying me for the work. He said it was his brother that owed me.
But it was him that hired me. I 'tended to some mules for nine months
at four dollars a week. I never got but one four dollars. The miles
belonged to him and his brother both, but it was him that hired me. It
wasn't Captain Stone, his brother. It was him, and I looked to the man
that hired me for my money. I didn't have nothing to do with nobody but
him. It was him promised to pay me."