"When slaves wanted to, they would have dances. They would have dances
from one plantation to the other. The master didn't object. They had
fiddles, banjo and quills. They made the quills and blowed 'em to beat
the band. Good music. They would make the quills out of reeds. Those
reeds would sound just like a piano. They didn't have no piano. They
didn't serve nothing. Nothing to eat and nothing to drink except them
that brought whiskey. The white folks made the whiskey, but the colored
folks would get it.
"We had church twice a month. The Union Church was three miles away from
us. My father and I would go when they had a meeting. Bethlehem Church
was five miles away. Everybody on the plantation belonged to that
church. Both the colored and the white belonged and went there. They had
the same pastor for Bethlehem, Union, and Dairy Ann. His name was Tom
Adams. He was a white man. Colored folks would go to Dairy Ann
sometimes. They would go to Union too.
"Sometimes they would have meetings from house to house, the colored
folks. The colored folks had those house to house meetings any time they
felt like it. The masters didn't care. They didn't care how much they
prayed.
"Sometimes they had corn shuckings. That was where they did the serving,
and that was where they had the big eatings. They'd lay out a big pile
of corn. Everybody would get down and throw the corn out as they shucked
it. They would have a fellow there they would call the general. He would
walk from one person to another and from one end of the pile to the
other and holler and the boys would answer. His idea was to keep them
working. If they didn't do something to keep them working, they wouldn't
get that corn shucked that night. Them people would be shucking corn!
There would be a prize to the one who got the most done or who would be
the first to get done. They would sing while they were shucking. They
had one song they would sing when they were getting close to the finish.
Part of it went like this:
'Red shirt, red shirt
Nigger got a red shirt.'
After the shucking was over, they would have pies, beef, biscuits, corn
bread, whiskey if you wanted it. I believe that was the most they had.
They didn't have any ice-cream. They didn't use ice-cream much in those
days. Didn't have no ice down there in the country. Not a bit of ice
there. If they had anything they wanted to save, they would let it down
in the well with a rope and keep it cool down there. They used to do
that here until they stopped them from having the wells.
"Ring plays too. Sometimes when they wanted to amuse themselves, they
would play ring plays. They all take hands and form a ring and there
would be one in the center of the ring. Now he is got to get out. He
would come up and say, 'I am in this lady's garden, and I'll bet you
five dollars I can get out of here.' And d'reckly he would break
somebody's hands apart and get out.