Voting

"There wasn't any voting by the slaves. But ever since freedom they

have been voting. None of my friends ever held any office. I don't

know anything about the niggers not voting now. Don't they vote?

Patter Rollers, K. K. K., White Carmelias, Etc.

"My mother and father knowed about Patter Rollers, but I don't know

nothing about them. But they are dead and gone. I have heard of the Ku

Klux but I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what I used to

know. No sir, I am out of the question now.

"There is one thing I keep straight. When I wants to drink or when I

wants to eat--oh yes, I know how to go to bed.

"You know I have seen the time when they would get in a close place

and they would make me preach, but it's all gone from me now. I can't

recollect."

Mary D. Hudgins

107 Palm Street,

Hot Springs, Ark.

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins

Person interviewed: John H. Logan

Aged: c. 89

Home: 449 Gaines Avenue.

[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]

Gaines Avenue was once a "Quality Street". It runs on a diagonal from

Malvern Avenue, a one-time first class residential thorofare to the

Missouri Pacific Tracks. Time was when Gaines led almost to the gates

of the fashionable Combes Racetrack.

Built up during the days of bay windows Gaines Avenue has preserved

half a dozen land marks of former genteelity. Long stretches between

are filled "shot gun" houses, unaquainted for many years with a

paintbrush.

Within half a block of the streetcar line on Malvern an early spring

had encouraged plowing of a 200 foot square garden. Signs such as

"Hand Laundry" appear frequently. But by far the most frequent placard

is "FOR SALE" a study in black and white, the insignia of a local real

estate firm specializing in foreclosures.

The street number sought proved to be two doors beyond the red brick

church. A third knock brought a slight, wrinkled face to the door, its

features aquiline, in coloring only the mildest of mocha. Its owner

Laura Burton Logan, after satisfying herself that the visitor wasn't

just an intruder, opened the door wide and invited her to come inside.

"Logan, oh Logan, come on here, come on in here," she called to an old

man in the next room. "Law, I don't know whether he can tell you

anything or not. He's getting pretty feeble. Now five or six years ago

he could have told you lots of things. But now----I don't know."

Into the "front room" hobbled the old fellow. His back was bent, his

eyes dimmed with age. His face was the sort often called "good"--not

good in the sense stupid acquiescence--but rather evidence of an

intelligent, non-preditory meeting of the problems of life.

A quarter, handed the old fellow at the beginning of the interview

remained clutched in his hand throughout the entire conversation.

Because of events during the talk the interviewer reached for her

change purse to find and offer another quarter. It was not in her

purse. Getting up from her chair she looked on the floor about her. It

wasn't there. Mrs. Logan, who had gone back to bed, wanted to know

what the trouble was, and was worried when she found what was missing.

By manner the interviewer put over the idea that she wasn't suspecting

either of the two. But Logan, not having heard the entire conversation

got to his feet and extended his hand--the one holding the quarter,

offering it back to the interviewer.

When he rose, there was the purse as it had slipped down on the seat

of the rocker which the interviewer had almost taken and in which she

had probably carelessly tossed her purse. A second quarter, added to

his first, brought a beaming smile from the old man. But for the rest

of the afternoon there was a lump in the interviewer's throat. Here

was a man, evidently terribly in need of money, ready, without even a

tiny protest, to return a gift of cash which must have meant so much

to him--on the barest notion in his mind that the interviewer wanted

it back.

"Be patient with me ma'am," Logan began, "I can't remember so good.

And I want to get it all right. I don't want to spoil my record now. I

been honest all my life, always stood up and told the truth, done what

was right. I don't want to spoil things and lie in my mouth now. Give

me time to think.

I was born, on----December----December 15. It was in 1848----I think.

I was born in the house of Mrs. Cozine. She was living on Third Street

in Little Rock. It was near the old Catholic Church. Was only a little

ways from the State House. Mrs. Cozine, she was my first mistress.

Then she sold me, me and my mother and a couple of brothers.

It was Governor Roane she sold me to. Don't know just how old I

was----good sized boy, though. Guess I was five--maybe six years old.

He was a fine man, Governor Roane was--a mighty fine man. He always

treated me good. Raised me up to be a good man.

I remember when he gives us a free-pass. That was during the war. He

said, 'Now boys, you be good. You stand for what is right, and don't

you tell any stories. I've raised you up to do right.'

When he wasn't governor any more he went back to Pine Bluff. We lived

there a long time. I was with Governor Roane right up until I was

grown. I can't right correct things in my mind altogether, but I think

I was with him until I was about 20.

When the war come on, Governor Roane helped to gather up troops. He

called us in out of the fields and asked us if we wanted to go. I did.

Right today I should be getting a pension. I was truly in the army.

Ought to be getting a pension. Once a white man, Mr. Williams, I

believe his name was, tried to get me to go with him to Little Rock.

Getting me a pension would be easy he said. But somehow we never did

go.

I worked in the powder factory for a while. Then they set me to

hauling things----mostly food from the Brazos river to Tyler, Texas.

We had hard times then----we had a time----and don't you let anybody

tell you we didn't. Sometimes we didn't have any bread. And even

sometimes we didn't have any water. I wasn't so old, but I was a

pretty good man----pretty well grown up.

After the war I went back with my pappy. While I'd belonged to

Governor Roane, Roane was my name. But when I went back with father, I

took his name. We farmed for a while and later I went to Little Rock.

I did lots of things there. Worked in a cabinet maker's shop for one

thing. Was classed as a good workman, too. I worked the lathes. Did a

good job of it. I never was the sort that had to walk around looking

for work. Folks used to come and get me and ask me to work for them.

How'd I happen to come to Hot Springs? They got me to come to work on

the water mains. Worked for the water works a long time. Then I worked

for a Mr. Smith in the bath house. I fired the furnace for him. Then

for about 15 years I kept the yard at the Kingsway----the Eastman it

was then. I kept the lawn clean at the Eastman Hotel. That was about

the last steady work I did.

Yes and in between I used to haul things. Had me an express wagon.

Used to build rock walls too. Built good walls.

Who did you say you was, Miss? Your father was Jack Hudgins--Law,

child, law----"

A feeble hand reached for the hand of the white woman and took it. The

old eyes filled with tears and the face distorted in weaping. For a

few minutes he sat, then he rose, and the young woman rose with him.

For a moment she put a comforting arm around him and soon he was

quieter.

"Law, so your father was Jack Hudgins. How well I does remember him.

Whatever did become of that fine boy? Dead did you say? I remembers

now. He was a fine man, a mighty--mighty fine man. Jack Hudgins girl!

Yes, Miss, I guess you has seen me around a lot. Lots of folks know

me. They'll come along the street and they'll say, 'Hello Logan!' and

sometimes I won't know who they are, but they'll know me.

I remember once, it's been years and years ago, a man come along

Central Avenue--a white man. I was going along the street and suddenly

he grabbed me and hugged me. It scared me at first. 'Logan,' he says,

'Logan' he says again. 'Logan, I'd know you anywhere. How glad I am to

see you.' But I didn't recognize him. 'Wife,' he says 'wife, come on

over and speak to Logan, he saved my life once.' Invited me to come

and see him too, he did.

Things have been mighty hard for the last few years. Seems like we

could get the pension. First they had a rule that we'd have to sign

away the home if we got $9.00 a month. Well, my wife's daughter was

taking care of us. Even if we got the $9 she'd still have to help. She

wasn't making much, but she was dividing everything--going without

shoes and everything. So we thought it wasn't fair to her to sign away

our home after all she'd done for us----so that they'd just kick her

out when we was dead--she'd been too good to us. So we says 'No!' We

been told that they done changed that rule, but we can't seem to get

help at all. Maybe, Miss, there's somthing you can do. We sure would

be thankful, if you could help us get on.

All my folks is dead, my mother and my father and all my brothers, my

first and my second wives and both my children. My wife's daughter

helps us all she can. She's mighty good to us. Don't know what we'd do

without her. Thank you, glad you come to see us. Glad to know you. If

you can talk to them over at the Court House, we'd be glad. Good-bye.

Come to see us ag in."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden

Person interviewed: Elvie Lomack

Residence: Foot of King Street on river bank,

no number; Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Age: 78

"Come right in and I'll tell you what I know. I was born in Tennessee

in slavery days. No ma'm I do not know what year, because I can't read

or write.

"I know who my mistress was. She was Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. She come

from Virginia. She was an old maid and she was very nice. Some very

good blooded people come from Virginia. She brought my mother with her

from Virginia before I was born.

"My father belonged to the Crowders and mammy belonged to Miss Lucy

Ann Dillard. They wouldn't sell pappy to Miss Lucy and she wouldn't

sell mammy to the Crowders, so mammy lost sight of him and never

married again. She just married that time by the consent of the white

folks. In them times they wasn't no such thing as a license for the

colored folks.

"I remember my mother milked and tended to the cows and issued out the

milk to the colored folks.

"Miss Lucy lived in town and come out once a week to see to us. When

the overseer was there she come out oftener. We stayed right on there

after the war, till we come to Arkansas. I was betwixt eleven and

twelve years old.

"And we was fooled in this place. A man my mother knowed had been here

two years. He come back to Tennessee and, oh Lord, you could do this

and do that, so we come here.

"First year we come here we all got down sick. When we got well we had

to go to work and I didn't have a chance to go to school.

"I've seen my mother wring her hands and cry and say she wished she

was back in Tennessee where Lucy Ann Dillard was.

"When I got big enough I went to work for Ben Johnson and stayed there

fifteen years. I never knew when my payday was. Mammy come and got my

pay and give me just what she wanted me to have. And as for runnin' up

and down the streets--why mammy would a died first. She's dead and in

her grave but I give her credit--she took the best of care of us. She

had three girls and they didn't romp up and down the big road neither.

"I just looks at the young folks now. If they had been comin' along

when I was, they'd done been tore all to pieces. They ain't raisin' em

now, they're just comin' up like grass and weeds. And as for speakin'

to you now--just turn their heads. Now I'm just fogy nuf that if I

meet you out, I'll say good mornin' or good evenin'.

"If it hadn't been for the Yankees, we'd have the yoke on our necks

right today. The Lord got into their hearts.

"Now I don't feel bitter gainst people. Ain't no use to hold malice

gainst nobody--got to have a clean heart. Folks does things cause

they's ignorant and don't know no better and they shouldn't be crowned

with it.

"But I'll tell you the truth--I've heard my mother say she was happier

in slavery times than after cause she said the Dillards certainly took

good care of her. Southerners got a heart in em."

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins

Person interviewed: Henry Long

Home 112 East Grand

Age: c. 71

"Yes, 'um, I owns my own home--and what's more it's on the same street

with the Mayor's house. Yes 'um, I owns a good home, has my own

chickens and my flowers and I has a pension of $50 a month.

"Just the other day I got a letter. It wanted me to join the National

Association of Retired Federal Workers. I took the letter to the boss

and he told me not to bother. Guess I'd better spend my money on

myself.

"I got some oil stock too. Been paying pretty good dividends since I

had it. Didn't pay any this year. They are digging a new well. That'll

maybe mean more money. It's paid pretty good up to now. Yes, me and my

wife, we're getting along pretty good. Nothing to worry about.

"Where was I born--it was in Kentucky, Russellville it was, just a few

miles from Bowling Green. Yes, 'um, Kentucky was a regular slave

state----a genuine slave state. Lots of 'em there.

"The man we belonged to----his name was Gabe Long. I remember hearin'

'em tell how they put him up on one block and sold him. They put his

wife up on another and sold her too. Only they both went in different

directions. They didn't see each other again for 30 years. By that

time he had married again twice. My mother was his third wife. She

lived to be 102 and he lived to be 99. Yes, 'um, I comes from a long

lived family. There's four of us still living. I got two brothers and

one sister. They all live back in Kentucky----pretty close to where we

was all born. One time, when I had a vacation----you know they gives

you a vacation with pay----30 days vacation it was. Well one time on

my vacation I went back to see my sister. She is living with her

daughter. She is 78. One brother is living with his son. He's 73. My

youngest brother owns his own farm. He is 64. All of 'em back in

Kentucky, they've been farmers. I'm the only one who has worked in

town. And I never worked in town until I come to Arkansas.

"Been in Hot Springs for over 50 years. Law, when I first come there

wasn't any Eastman hotel. There wasn't any Park hotel. I don't mean

that Park Hotel up in Happy Hollow. The one I mean was down on

Malvern. It burned in the fire of 1913. Law, when I come there wasn't

nothing but mule street cars. Hot Springs has seen lots of changes.

"Back in Kentucky I'd been working around where I was born. Worked

around the houses mostly. They paid me wages and wanted me to go on

working for them. But I decided I wanted to get away. So I went to

Little Rock. But didn't find nothing much to do there. Then I went on

up Cedar Glades way. Then I come to Hot Springs.

"First I worked for a man who had a big garden----it's out where South

Hot Springs is now----oh you know what the man's name was----he was

named----he was named--name was Barker, that's it, Barker." (The

"Barker Place" has been divided up into lots and blocks and is one of

the more popular residential districts.)

"Then I got a job at the Park hotel. No ma'am. I didn't work in the

yard. I worked in the refrigerators and the pantry. Then about meal

times I served the fruit. You know how a big, fashionable hotel

is--there's lots of things that has to be done around 'em.

"Finally I got rheumatism and I had to quit that kind of work. So I

got a job firing the furnace at the electric light plant. It was down

on Malvern then. That was before the fire of 1913. I was working right

there when the fire come. It was pretty awful. It burned just about

everything out there on Malvern----and places on lots of other streets

too.

"After that I got a job at the Eastman hotel. I fired the furnace and

worked on the boilers. Worked there a long time. Then they sent me to

the Arlington. You know at that time the same company owned both the

Eastman and the Arlington. It wasn't this new Arlington----it was the

second one--the red brick one. Built that second one while I was here.

The first one was wood.

"Back in the time when I come, there was a creek running through most

of the town. There wasn't any Great Northern hotel. There was just a

big creek there.

"But how-some-ever, to go on. After I worked at the Arlington on the

boilers and the furnace--I got a job at the Army and Navy Hospital.

Now that wasn't the new hospital either. It was the old one--it was

red brick too.

"Next, I worked at the LaMar Bath house. I was there a long

time----for years and years. Then they got to building over the bath

houses. One by one they tore down the old ones and put new ones up. I

worked on at the LaMar until they tore the old one down to build the

new one. Then I went up to the Quapaw to work. Worked there for quite

some time.

"Finally they sent for me to come on down and work for the government.

I's worked under a lot of the Superintendents. I started working for

the government when Dr.----Dr.----Dr. Warring----Warring was his name.

He was a nice man. Then there was Dr. Bolton. I worked for him too.

Then there was----there was----oh, what was his

name----De--De--DeValin--that's it. Then there was Dr. Collins. He was

the last of the Doctors. Then there was Mr. Allen and now Mr. Libbey.

"Yes, 'um, I worked for a lot of 'em and made a HOME RUN with all of

'em. Every one of 'em liked me. I always did good work. All of 'em

liked the way I worked.

"Yes 'um. I been married 41 years----20 years to the first woman----21

to this one. The first one come from Mississippi. Her name was Ula.

This one's name is Charlotte. She come from Magnolia--that's in

Arkansas.

"You know ma'am, I come from Kentucky where they raise fine race

horses. I worked around 'em a lot. But I ain't seen many races. We

lived out in the country. We had good horses, but they didn't race

'em. I worked with the horses around the place, but we didn't go in

town to see the races. What did we raise? Well tobacco and wheat and

the usual things. All my folks, but me is still working on farms.

"No 'um, I didn't rightly know how old I was. I was working along, not

thinking much about what I was doing. Then the men down at the office"

(Hot Springs National Park) "started asking me how old I was. I

couldn't tell 'em. But I thought I was born the year the slaves was

freed. They said I ought to be retired.

"So they wrote back----or somebody stopped over while he was on his

vacation--can't quite remember which. Anyhow they found I was old

enough to retire----ought to have retired several years ago. So now I

got my home, got my pension and got my time to do what I wants to

do."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden

Person interviewed: Annie Love

1116 E. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Age: 85?

"I don't know exactly how old I am. I was here when the war was goin'

on. I know I used to see the soldiers come by and come in, but I

wasn't big enough to work. I was born in Richmond, Virginia.

"My owners moved from Virginia to Mississippi. My mother and I lived

on one place and my father lived on another plantation. I remember one

Sunday he come to see me and when he started home I know I tried to go

with him. He got a little switch and whipped me. That's the onliest

thing I can remember bout him.

"Billy Cole was my master and I didn't have any mistress cause he

never was married.

"My mother worked in the field and I was out there with her when the

cannons commenced shootin' at Helena. We said they was shootin' at us

and we went to the house. Oh Lord, we said we could see em, Lord yes!

"After surrender, our owner, Billy Cole, told us we was free and that

we could go or stay so we stayed there for four or five years. I don't

know whether we was paid anything or not. After that we just went from

place to place and worked by the day.

"I never did see any Ku Klux but they come to my mother's house one

night and wanted my stepfather to show'em where a man lived. He went

down the road with 'em a piece. They wanted a drink and, oh Lord,

they'd drink mighty nigh a bucket full.

"Oh Lord, when I was young goin' to parties and dances, that was my

rule. Oh Lord, I went to them dances.

"I went to church, too. That was one thing I did do. I ain't able to

go now but I'll tell anybody when I could, I sure went.

"I went to school mighty little--off and on bout two years. I never

learned nothin' though.

"I lived right in Memphis mighty nigh twenty years then I come to

Arkansas bout thirty-two years ago and I'm mighty near right where I

come to Pine Bluff.

"I don't know of anything else but all my days I believe I've worked

hard, cookin' and washin' and ironin'."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor

Person interviewed: Needham Love

1014 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas

Age: 80, or older

"Old Joe Love sold us to old Jim McClain, Meridian, Mississippi, and

old McClain brought us down on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

That was during the War. It was down there on a big old plantation

where the cane was high as this house. I was born in Alabama. When the

War started, he brought us all down to Meridian and sold us. He sold

me in my mother's arms.

"We cut down all that cane and woods and cleared up the place on the

Tallahatchie. We did all that before we learned we was free.

"They built log houses for the white and black. They sealed the white

folks' houses and chinked the colored folks'. They didn't have but one

house for the white folks. There was only one white person down there

and that was old Jim McClain. Just come down there in time of harvest.

He lived in Lexington the rest of the time. He told his people, 'When

I die, bury me in a bale of cotton.' One time he got sick and they

thought he would die. They gathered all the hands up and all the

people about the place. There was about three hundred. He come to his

senses and said, 'What's all these people doing here?'

"His son said, 'Papa, they thought you was goin' to die and they come

up to see you.'

"And he said to his son, 'Well, I ain't dead yet. Tell 'em to git back

on the job, and chop that cotton.'

"I did not have any work to do in slavery time. When the War ended I

was only five years old. But I played the devil after the War though.

When the slaves were freed, I shouted, but I ain't got nothin' yet. I

learned a lot though. My father used to make a plow or a harrow. They

made cotton in those days. Potatoes ain't no 'count now. In them days,

they made potatoes so good and sweet that they would gum up your

hands. Mothers used to make good old ash cakes. Used to have

pot-liquor with grease standin' up on it. People don't know nothin'

now. Don't know how to cook.

"My father's name was Joe Love and my mother's name was Sophia. I

don't know any of my grandparents. All of them belonged to old Joe

Love. I never did know any of them. I know my father and mother--my

mammy and pappy--that's what we called 'em in them days.

"Old man Joe would go out sometimes and come in with a hog way in the

night. He was a cooper--made water buckets, pans to make bread up in

and things like that. Mammy would make us git up in the night and

clean our mouths. If they didn't, children would laugh at them the

next day and say the spiders had been biting your mouth, 'cause we

were sposed to had so much grease on our mouths that the spiders would

swing down and bite them.

"I professed religion when I was sixteen years old. It was down in the

Free Nigger Bend where my father had bought a little place on the

public road between Greenwood and Shellmount.

"I married that fall. My father had died and I had got to be a man.

Done better then than I do since I got old. I had one cow and my

mother let me have another. I made enough money to buy a pair of mules

and a wagon. My wife was willing to work. She would go out and git

some poke greens and pepper and things and cook them with a little

butter. Night would come, we'd go out and cut a cord of wood. Got

'long better then than people do now.

"I began preaching soon as I joined the church. I began at the

prayer-meetings. I preached for forty-seven years before I fell. I've

had two strokes. It's been twenty-eight years or more since I was able

to work for myself.

"I have heard about the pateroles but I never did know much about

them. I have heard my father talk about them. He never would get a new

suit and go to town but what they would catch him out and say, 'You

got a pass?' He would show it to them, and they would sit down and

chew old nasty tobacco and spit the juice out on him all over his

clothes.

"The Ku Klux never did bother us any. Not after I got the knowledge to

know what was what. They was scared to bother people 'cause the

niggers had gone and got them some guns and would do them up.

"Old Jim McClain had one son who was bad. He used to jump on the

niggers an' 'buse and beat them up. The niggers got tired of it and he

started gittin' beat up every time he started anything and they didn't

have no more trouble.

"Jim McClain didn't mistreat his niggers. The boys did after he was

dead though. He died way after slavery. If a nigger went off his place

and stole a cow or a hog or something, you better not come 'round

there and try to do nothin' about it. Jim McClain would be right there

to protect him.

"When he died, the horses could hardly pull him up the hill. He wanted

to stay back down there in the bottoms where that cotton was.

"When I got to realizing, it was after freedom. But they had slavery

rules then. There was one old woman who used to take care of the

children while their parents were working in the fields. Sometimes it

would be a week before I would see my mother and father. Children

didn't set up then and look in old folks' faces like they do now. They

would go to bed early. Wake up sometimes way in the middle of the

night. Old folks would be holding a meeting and singing and praying.

"They used to feed the children pot-liquor and bread and milk.

Sometimes a child would find a piece of meat big as your two fingers

and he would holler out, 'Oh look, I got some meat.'

"Fourth of July come, everybody would lay by. Niggers all be gathered

together dancing and the white folks standin' 'round lookin' at them.

"Right after the surrender, I went to night school a little, but most

of my schooling was got by the plow. After I come to be a minister I

got a little schooling.

"I can't get about now. I have had two strokes and the doctor says for

me not to go about much. I used to be able to go about and speak and

the churches would give me something, but since this new 'issue' come

out, theology and dogology and all such as that, nobody cares to pay

any 'tention to me. Think you are crazy now if you say 'amen.' Don't

nobody carry on the church now but three people--the preacher, he

preaches a sermon; the choir, he sings a song; and another man, he

lifts a collection. People go to church all the years now and never

pray once.

"I get some help from the Welfare. They used to pay me ten dollars

pension. They cut me down from ten to eight. And now they cut me down

to four. They cut the breath out of me this time.

"I got some mighty good young brothers never pass me up without givin'

me a dime or fifteen cents. Then I got some that always pass me up and

never give me nothing. I have built churches and helped organize

churches from here back to Mississippi.

"I don't know what's goin' to become of our folks. All they study is

drinking whiskey and gamblin' and runnin' after women. They don't

care for nothin'. What's ruinin' this country is women votin'. When a

woman comes up to a man and smiles at him, he'll do what she wants him

to do whether it's right or wrong.

"The best part of our preachers is got so they are dishonest. Stealing

to keep up automobiles. Some of them have churches that ain't no

bigger than this room."