"There weren't no voting at all in slavery times (in his locality--ed.)
that is, far as the niggers were concerned. But after everybody was free
you could vote up until they stopped the people from voting. They kept a
Republican ticket in then. There wasn't no Democrat. None like they is
now. I don't know how this thing got mixed up like it is now.
"I remember once in North Carolina a man named Bryant got away with a
lot of votes in the boxes. He was seen to go out with two boxes under
his arms. And when they counted up the votes, the Democrats was ahead.
In them days, they counted up the votes before they left the polls. They
wanted to kill him. They sent him to the penitentiary to stay five
years. When he went in he was a young man, and when he came back he was
gray.
"There was some fighting down there that night. My father was a
constable. It was the white folks got to fighting each other. They got
to 'resting them and they filled the calaboose full that night. Didn't
have but one jail and that was in Halifax. The penitentiary was in
Raleigh. Raleigh was about 85 miles from Halifax, and Halifax about 75
from Enfield. The jail was twelve miles from Enfield."