This man could easily pass for a white person.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Annie Parks
720 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 80
Occupation: Formerly house and field work
"I was born and raised in Mer Rouge, Louisiana. That is between here and
Monroe. I have been here in Little Rock more than twenty-five years.
"My mother's name was Sarah Mitchell. That was her married name. I don't
know what her father's name was. My father's name was Willis Clapp. He
was killed in the first war--the Civil War. My father went to the war
from Mer Rouge, Louisiana. I don't remember him at all. But that is what
my mother told me about him. My mother said he had very good people.
After he married my mother, old man Offord bought him. Offord's name was
Warren Offord. They buried him while I was still there in Mer Rouge. He
was a old-time Mason. That was my mother's master--in olden days.
"His grandmother took my mother across the seas with her. She (his
grandmother) died on shipboard, and they throwed her body into the
water. There's people denies it, but my mother told me it was so. Young
Davenport is still living. He is a relative of Offords. My mother never
did get no pension for my father.