"The young people nowadays are all right. There is not so much ignorance
now as there was in those days. There was ignorance all over then. The
Peckerwoods wasn't much wise either. They know nowadays though. Our race
has done well in refinement.
"I find that the Negro is more appreciated in politics in the North and
West than in the South. I don't know whether it will grow better or not.
"I'll tell you something else. The best of these white people down here
don't feel so friendly toward the North."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Graham
408 Maple Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75
[HW: ["Free Negroes"]]
"I was born in South Carolina, Lancaster County, about nine miles from
Lancaster town. My father's name was Tillman Graham and my mother's name
was Eliza.
"I have seen my grandfathers, but I forget their names now. My father
was a farmer. My father and mother belonged to this people, that is, to
the Tillmans.
"On my father's side, they called my people free Negroes because they
treated them so good. On my mother's side they had to get their
education privately. When the white children would come from school, my
mother's people would get instruction from them. My mother was a maid in
the house and it was easy for her to get training that way."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Marthala Grant
2203 E. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 77
"All I can remember is some men throwin' us up in the air and ketchin'
us, me and my baby brother. Like to scared me to death. They had on
funny clothes. Me and my brother was out in the yard playin'. They just
grabbed us up and throwed us up and ketched us.
"My mother would tell us bout the war. She had on some old shoes--wooden
shoes. Her white folks name was Hines. That was in North Carolina. I
emigrated here when they was emigratin' folks here. I was grown then.
"Durin' the war I heered the shootin' and the people clappin' their
hands.
"My mother said they was fightin' to free the people but I didn't know
what freedom was. I member hearin' em whoopin' and hollerin' when peace
was 'clared and talkin' bout it.
"Yes'm I went to school some--not much. I learned a right smart to read
but not much writin'.
"We'd go up to the white folks house every Sunday evenin' and old
mistress would learn us our catechism. We'd have to comb our heads and
clean up and go up every Sunday evenin'. She'd line us up and learn us
our catechism.
"We stayed right on there after the war. They paid my mother. I picked
cotton and nussed babies and washed dishes.
"I was married when I was twenty. Never been married but once and my
husband been dead nigh bout twenty years."
"When I come here this town wasn't much--sure wasn't much. Used to have
old car pulled by mules and a colored man had that--old Wiley Jones.
He's dead now.
"I had eleven childen. All dead but five. My boy what's up North went to
that Spanish War. He stayed till peace was declared.
"After we come to Arkansas my husband voted every year and worked the
county roads. I guess he voted Republican.
"I can't tell you bout the younger generation. They so fast you can't
keep up with them. I really can't tell you."
#731
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Wesley Graves
817 Hickory Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 70
[HW: [Father Taught Night School]]
"My father's white folks were named Tal Graves. My mother was a McAdoo.
Her white folks were McAdoos. Some of them are over the river now. He's
a great jewelryman now.
"I was born in Trenton, Tennessee. My father was born 'round in
Humboldt, Tennessee. My mother was born in Paris, Tennessee and moved
out in the country near Humboldt. He met my mother out there and married
her just a little bit before the War. He was a slave and she was too.
"He didn't go to the War; he went to the woods. He got to chasing
'round. His young mistress married. She married a Graves. That was the
name we was freed under. She was a Shane.
"She educated my father. When she come from school, she would teach him
and just carry him right on through the course that way. That was a good
while before the War. Her father gave him to her when she married
Graves. He was a little boy and she kept him and educated him. Graves
ran a farm. I don't know just what my father did when he was little. He
was raised up as a house boy. Very little he ever done in the field. I
don't know what he did after he grew up and before freedom came. After
peace was declared, he taught in night school. He preached too. His
first farming was done a little after he come out here. I was about
seven years old then. That was in the year 1873.
"My mother's full name was Adeline McAdoo. Before freedom she did
housework. She was a kind a pet with the white folks. She didn't do much
farming. My mother and father had six children--five boys and one girl.
All born after freedom. There were three ahead of me. The oldest was
born before the War, not afterward.
"In my country where I was raised the Negroes weren't freed until 1865.
My uncle, Jim Shane--that is the only name I ever knew him by--, he ran
away and come to this country and made money enough to come back and buy
his freedom. Just about time he got himself paid for, the War closed and
he would have been freed anyway. The money wouldn't have done him no
good anyhow because it was all Confederate money, and when the War
closed, that wasn't no good.
"My father ran away when the War broke out. His master wanted to carry
him to the army with him and he run off and stayed in the woods three
years. He stayed until his little mistress wrote him a letter and told
him she would set him free if he would come home. He stayed out till the
War closed. He wouldn't take no chances on it.
"The pateroles made my father do everything but quit. They got him about
teaching night school. That was after slavery, but the pateroles still
got after you. They didn't want him teaching the Negroes right after the
War. He had opened a night school, and he was doing well. They just kept
him in the woods then."