[1] Units of Hot Springs National Park.
[2] Spot without soil or vegetation--broken talus rock.
[3] Home clean, well painted and cared for, two story, large lot. Rental
cottage, good condition, negro neighborhood.
[4] Bank owned and operated for and by negroes--affiliated with
headquarters of large national negro lodge.
[5] No public schools in Hot Springs until the late 70s.
[6] The Adeline Blakely of another Arkansas interview with slaves.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jake Goodridge
Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: 97? 87 is about correct
Born August 4, 1857
"I was born close to Jackson, Tennessee in Madison County. My master was
Hatford Weathers. His wife's name was Susan Weathers. They had a big
family--John, Lidy, Mattie, Polly, Betty, and Jimmy, that I recollect
and there might er been some more.
"My parents' names was Narcissus and Jacob Goodridge. I had one brother
that was a Yankee soldier, and five sisters. One sister did live in
Texas. They all dead fur as I know. We got scattered. Some of us got
inherited fore freedom. Jake Goodridge took me along when he went to the
army to wait on him. Right there it was me an' my brother fightin' agin
one 'nother.
"When we come to St. Charles we come to Memphis on freight boxes--no
tops--flat cars like. There a heap more soldiers was waiting. We got on
a boat--a great big boat. There was one regiment--Indiana Cavalry, one
Kansas, one Missouri, one Illinois. All on deck was the horses. There
was 1,200 men in a regiment and four regiments, 4,800 horses and four
cannons. There was not settin' down room on the boat. They captured my
master and sent him to prison. First they put him in a callaboose and
then they sent him on to prison and they took me to help them. They made
a waitin' boy of me. I didn't lack none of 'em. They cussed all the
time. I heard they paroled my master long time after the war.
"They would shoot a cannon, had a sponge on a long rod. They wipe it out
and put in another big ball, get way back and pull a rope. The cannon
fire agin. Course I was scared. I was scared to death bout two years,
that 'bout how long I was in the war. I was twelve or fourteen years
old. I recollect it as well as if it was yesterday. They never had a
battle at St. Charles while I was there. They loaded up the boat and
took us to Little Rock. They mustered out there. The Yankee soldiers
give out news of freedom. They was shouting 'round. I jes' stood around
to see whut they goiner do next. Didn't nobody give me nuthin'. I didn't
know what to do. Everything going. Tents all gone, no place to go stay
and nothin' to eat. That was the big freedom to us colored folks. That
the way white folks fightin' do the colored folks. I got hungry and
naked and cold many a time. I had a good master and I thought he always
treated me heap better than that. I wanted to go back but I had no way.
I made it down to St. Charles in 'bout a year after the surrender. I
started farmin'. I been farmin' ever since. In Little Rock I found a job
in a tin pin alley, pickin' up balls. The man paid me $12 a month, next
to starvation. I think his name was Warren Rogers.
"I went to Indian Bay 'bout 1868 and farmed for Mr. Hathway, then Mr.
Duncan. Then I come up to Clarendon and been here ever since.
"One time I owned 40 acres at Holly Grove, sold it, spent the money.
"I too old, I don't fool wid no votin'. I never did take a big stock in
sich foolishness.
"I live wid my daughter and white folks. The Welfare give me $8 a month.
We got a garden. No cow. No hog. No chickens.
"The present conditions seem pretty bad. Some do work and some don't
work. Nobody savin' that I sees. Takes it all to live on. I haben't give
the present generation a thought."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John Goodson (Goodrum)
Des Arc, Arkansas
Age: Born in 1865
"My master was Bill Goodrum. I was born at Des Arc out in the country
close by here. My mother was a house woman and my father was overseer. I
was so little I don't remember the war. I do remember Doc Rayburn. I
seed him and remember him all right. He was a bushwacker and a Ku Klux
they said. I don't remember the Ku Klux. Never seed them.
"I heard my parents say they expected the government to divide up the
land and give them a start--a home and some land. They got just turned
out like you turn a hog out the pen and say go on I'm through wid you.
"I heard them set till midnight talking 'bout whut all took place during
the Civil War. The country was wild and it was a long ways between the
houses. There wasn't many colored folks in this country till closin' of
the war. They started bringing 'em here. Men whut needed help on the
farms.
"All my life I been cooking. I cooked at hotels and on boats. I cooked
some in restaurants. They say it was the heat caused me to go blind. I
cooked up till 1927. The last folks I cooked for was on a boat for
Heckles and Wade Sales up at Augusta, Arkansas. I done carpentry work
some when I was off of a cooking job. I never liked farmin' much. I have
done a little of that along between times too. My main job is cooking.
"I voted along when I could see. I ain't voted lately. I sho lacks this
President.
"I had a house and lot--this one, but I couldn't pay taxes. We still
living in it. We got a garden. No hog, no cow. We made our home when I
cooked and my wife washed and ironed.
"I think this new generation of colored folks is awful. They can get
work if they would do it. Times is gettin' worse. They work some if the
price suit 'em, if it don't, they steal. They spend 'bout all they make
for shows, whiskey and I don't know whut all.
"The Social Welfare gives me $8 a month. My wife does all the washing
and ironin' she can get. We are doing very well.
"I don't understand much 'bout votin' and picking out canidates. It
don't hurt if the women want to vote.
"Only songs I ever heard was corn songs. I don't remember none. They
make 'em up out in the fields. Some folks good at making up songs. One I
used to hear a whole heap was 'It goiner be a hot time in the old time
tonite.' Another one 'If you liker me liker I liker you. We both liker
the same.' I don't remember no more them songs. I used to hear 'em a
whole lots. Yes out in the fields."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Pages 58 to 62 have been withdrawn after numbering.
Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: George Govan
Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 52
"George Govan is my name, and I was born in Conway County somewheres in
December 1886--I guess it was about de seventeenth of December. We lived
there till 1911, when I come to Pope County. Both my parents was slaves
on de plantation of a Mr. Govan near Charleston, South Carolina. Dat's
where we got our name. Folks come to Arkansas after dey was freed. No
sir, I ain't edicated--never had de chance. Parents been dead a good
many years.
"Yas suh, my folks used to talk a heap and tell me lots of tales of
slavery days, and how de patrollers used to whip em when dey wanted to
go some place and didn't have de demit to go. Yas suh, dey had to have a
demit to go any place outside work hours. Dey whipped my mother and
father both sometimes, and dey sure was afraid of dem patrollers. Used
to say, 'If you don't watch out de patrollers'll git you.' Dey'd catch
de slaves and tie em up to a tree or a pos' and whip em wid buggy whips
and rawhides.
"Some of de slaves was promised land and other things when dey was
freed, and some wasn't promised nothin'. Some got land and a span of
mules, and some didn't get nothin'. No suh, my daddy didn't farm none at
first after he was freed because he didn't have no money to buy land,
but he done odd jobs here and there till he come to Arkansas seven or
eight years after the War.
"Yes, I owns my own home; been livin' in it for ten years, since I've
been workin' as janitor at dis Central Presbyterian Church. I belongs to
de Missionary Baptis' Church, but my parents were both Methodists.
"Sure did have lots of good songs in de old days, like 'Old Ship of
Zion' and 'On Jordan's Stormy Banks.' Used to have one that begins
'Those that 'fuse to sing never knew my God.' It was a purty piece; and
then there was another one about a 'Rough, rocky road.'
"De young people today has much better opportunities than when I was a
child, and much better than dey had in slavery days, because dar ain't
no patrollers to whip em. Most of em dese days has purty good behavior,
and I think dey're better than in de old days.
"I has always voted regularly since I come of age--votes de Republican
ticket. Can't read but a little, but I never had any trouble about
votin'."
NOTE: George Govan is an intelligent Negro, fairly neat in his dress,
very tall and erect in stature. Brogue quite noticeable, and occasional
idioms that make his interview interesting and personal.
#712
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Julia Grace
819 N. Spruce Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 75
"I was seventy-four this last past fourth of July. I was born in Texas.
My mother was sent to Texas to keep from bein' freed.
"Ad March and Spruce McCrary is the onliest white folks I remember bein'
with. I don't know whether they was our owners or not.
"My father was sent to North Carolina and I never did see him no more.
"After freedom they brought us back here from Texas and we worked on the
McCrary plantation.
"In slavery days mama said she and my father stayed in the woods most of
the time. That's when they was whippin' 'em.
"My mother come from Richmond, Virginia. Petersburg was her town. She
belonged to the Wellses over there.
"After her master got his leg broke, the rest was so mean to her she run
off a couple times, so they sold her. Put her up on the tradin'
block--like goin' to make a speech. Stripped 'em naked. The man bid 'em
off like you'd bid off oxen.
"Mama told me her missis, after her husband died, got so mean to her she
run off till her old missis sold her. They weighed 'em and stripped 'em
naked to see if they was anything wrong with 'em and how they was built
and then bid 'em off.
"Mama said she never would a been in Arkansas if they hadn't been so
mean to her. They were too compulsive on 'em--you know, hard
taskmasters.
"After freedom Ad March went back to North Carolina and Spruce McCrary
come here to Pine Bluff.
"Fust time I moved here in town was in 1888. I stayed ten months, then I
went back to the country. I aimed to go to Fort Smith but I got to
talkin' with my playmates and I didn't have too much money, and I stayed
till I didn't have enough money left to keep me till I could get a job.
So I stayed here and worked for Mrs. Freemayer till I got so I couldn't
work. She's the one got me on this relief.
"I went to school one session in 1886. Sam Caeser, he was a well-known
teacher. He got killed here in Pine Bluff.
"I can't sweep and I can't iron. I got a misery in my back. I washes my
clothes and spreads 'em out till they dry. Then I puts 'em on and
switches into church and ever'body thinks they has been ironed.
"They ain't but one sign I believes in and that's peckerwoods. Just as
sure as he pecks three times, somebody goin' to move or somebody goin'
to die. Just as sure as you live somebody goin' out.
"One time one of my grandchildren and a friend of mine was walkin'
through the woods and we missed the main road we aimed to ketch, and we
got into a den of wild hogs. I said, 'Lord, make 'em stand still till we
get out of here.' One of 'em was that tall and big long ears hung down
over his eyes. That was the male, you know. I reckon they couldn't see
us and we walked as easy as we could and we got away and struck the main
road. I reckon if they could a seen us we would a been 'tacked but we
got away. I had heard how they made people take to trees, and I was
scared.
"Have you ever seen a three-legged cow? Well, I have. I looked at her
good. She was grown and had a calf."
--- 11 1938
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Charles Graham
616 W. 27th Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 79
[HW: [Freed in '63]]
"I was born September 27, 1859, Clarksville, Tennessee. I don't remember
the county. There are several Clarksvilles throughout the South. But
Clarksville, Tennessee is the first and the oldest.
"I got a chance to see troops after the Civil War was over. The soldiers
were playing, boxing, and the like. Then I remember hearing the cannons
roar--long toms they used to call 'em. My uncle said, 'That is General
Grant opening fire on the Rebels.'
"The first clear thing I remember was when everybody was rejoicing
because they were free. The soldiers were playing and boxing and
chucking watermelons at one another. They had great long guns called
muskets. I heard 'em say that Abraham Lincoln had turned 'em loose.
Where I was at, they turned 'em loose in '63. Lincoln was assassinated
in '65. I heard that the morning after it was done. We was turned loose
long before then.
"I was too young to pay much attention, but they were cutting up and
clapping their hands and carrying on something terrible, and shouting,
'Free, free, old Abraham done turned us loose.'
"I was here in them days! Heard those long toms roar! General Grant
shelling the Rebels!"