Them days I used to wash my mistis feet and legs, and sometimes I would
fall asleep against my mistis knees. I tells the young fry to give honor
to the white folks, and my preacher tell 'em to obey the white folks,
dat dey are our best friends, dey is our dependence and it would be hard
getting on if we didn't have em to help us.
Spirits--Me and my husband moved into a house that a man, "uncle Bill"
Hearn died in, and we wanted dat house so bad we moved right in as soon
as he was taken out, we ate supper and went to bed.
By the time we got to sleep we heard sounds like someone was emptying
shelled corn, and I hunched up under my husband scared to death and then
moved out the next day. The dead haven't gone to Heaven. When death
comes, he comes to your heart. He has your number and knows where to
find you. He won't let you off, he has the key.
Death comes and unlocks the heart and twists the breath out of that
heart and carries it back to God.
Nobody has gone to Heaven, no one can get pass Jesus until the day of
his redemption, which is judgement day.
We can't pass the door without being judged. On the day of ressurection
the trumpet will sound and us will wake up out of he graveyard, and come
forth to be judged. The sea shall give up its dead. Every nation will
have to appear before God and be judged in a twinklin of an eye. If you
aren't prepared before Jesus comes, it will be too late. God is
everywhere, he is the almight. God is a nice God, he is a clean God, he
is a good God. I would be afraid to tell you a lie for God would strike
me down.
Eight years ago I couldn't see, I wore specs 3 years. I forgot my specs
one morning, I prayed for my eyesight and it was restored that morning.
Our marster was a good man. De overseers sometimes wuz bad, but dey did
not let marsters know how dey treated their girl slaves. My grandmother
was whipped by de overseers one time, it made welts on her back. My
sister Mary had a child by a white man.
To get joy in de morning, get up and pray and ask Him to bless you. God
will feed all alike, he is no respector of persons. He shows no extra
favors twixt de rich and de poor.
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Marguerite Perkins
West Sixth and Catalpa Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born in slavery times, Miss. I was born in South Carolina, Union
County. I was born in May.
"I know I 'member old Missy. I just been washin' her feet and legs when
they said the Yankees was comin. Old Miss' name was Miss Sally. Her
husband was a colonel. What is a colonel?
"I got some white cousins. They tell me they was the boss man's chillun.
"Yes'm, I reckon Miss Sally was good to me. I'm a old nigger. All us
niggers belonged to Colonel Beatty. I went to school a little while but
I didn't learn nothin'.
"I use to be a nurse girl and sleep right upstairs.
"Missus, you know people just walkin along the street droppin dead with
heart trouble and white women killin men. I tell you lady it's awful.
"I been married just once. The Lord took him out o' my house one Sunday
morning 'fore day.
"The thing about it is I got that high blood pressure. Well, Missus, I
had it five years ago and I went to Memphis and the Lord healed me. All
we got to do is believe in the Lord and He will put you on your feet.
"I had four sisters and three brothers and all of 'em dead but me,
darlin.
"Now let me tell you somethin'. Old as I is, I ain't never been to but
one picture show in my life. Old as I is, I never was on a base ball
ground in my life. The onliest place I go now is to church."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Rachel Perkins, Goodwin, Arkansas
Age: ? Baby during the Civil War
"I was born in Greensboro, Alabama. Sallie Houston and Peter Houston was
my parents. They had two girls and a boy. They died when they was small,
but me. They always told me mother died when I was three days old in the
cradle. I don't fur a fact know much about my own people. Miss Agnes
took me to raise me fur a house girl. She nursed me wid her Mary. My
mother's and father's owners was Alonso Brown and Miss Agnes Brown.
Their two girls was Mary and Lucy and their three boys was Bobby, Jesse,
and Frank. Miss Agnes rocked the babies to sleep in a big chair out on
the gallery. We slept there all night. Company come and say, 'Where the
babies?' Miss Agnes take them back and show us off. They say, 'Where the
little black chile?' They'd try to get me to come go live wid them. They
say they be good to me. I'd tell 'em, 'No, I stay here.' It was good a
home as I wanted. We slept on the front gallery till Lucy come on, then
we had sheep skin pallets. She got the big chair. She put us out there
because it was cool.
"I left Miss Agnes when I got to be my own woman. Didn't nobody toll me
off. I knowed I ought to go to my own race of people. They come after me
once. Then they sent the baby boy after me what I had nursed. I wanted
to go but I never went. Miss Lucy and Miss Mary both in college. It was
lonesome for me. I wanted to go to my color. I jus' picked up and walked
on off.
"My girl is half Indian. I'm fifteen years older than my girl. Then I
married Wesley Perkins, my husband. He is black fur a fact. He died last
fall. I married at my husband's brother's by a colored preacher. Tom
Screws was his name. He was a Baptist preacher.
"I never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count
money. Seem lack it jus' come natural. I never learned it at no one
time. It jus' come to me.
"In warm weather I slept on the gallery and in cold weather I slept by
the fire. I made down my own bed. I cleaned the house. I took the cows
off to the pasture. I nursed the babies, washed and dried the dishes. I
made up the beds and cleaned the yards.
"Master Brown owned two farms. He had plenty hands on his farms. I did
never go down to the farms much but I knowed the hands. On Saturday
little later than other days they brought the stock to the house and
fed. Then they went to the smokehouse for their rations. He had a great
big garden, strawberries, and grape arbors.
"One thing I had to do was worm the plants. I put the worms in a bottle
and leave it in the row where the sun would dry the worms up. When a
light frost come I would water the plants that would wilt before the sun
riz and ag'in at night. Then the plants never felt the frost. Certainly
it didn't kill 'em. It didn't hurt 'em.
"Julane was the regular milk woman. She milked and strained the milk. I
churned and 'tended to the chickens. Miss Agnes sot the hens her own
self. She marked the eggs with a piece of charcoal to see if other hens
laid by the setting hen. If they did she'd take the new egg out of the
nest.
"We had flower gardens. We had mint, rosemary, tansy, sage, mullen,
catnip, horseradish, artichokes, hoarhound--all good home remedies.
"I never knowed when we moved to that farm. I was so small. I heard Miss
Agnes Brown say I was a baby when they moved to Boldan depot, not fur
from Clinton, Mississippi.
"When I left Miss Agnes I went to some folks my own color on another
farm 'joining to their farm. Of course I took my baby. I took Anna and I
been living with Anna ever since. What I'd do now without her. (Anna is
an Indian and very proud of being half Indian.) My husband done dead.
"I get eight dollars welfare help. And I do get some commodities. Anna
does all right but she got hit on the shoulder and about lost use of her
arm. One of the railroad hands up here got mad and hit her. I had
doctors. They done it a little good. It's been hurt three years or more
now.
"I wisht I knowd where to find a bed of mullen. Boil it down to a syrup
and add some molasses, boil that down. It makes a good syrup for coughs
and colds.
"I never went to white folks' church none hardly. Miss Agnes sent me
along with her cook to my own color's church.
"My husband sure was good to me. We never had but one fight. Neither one
whooped.
"This young generation is going backward. They tired of training. They
don't want no advice. They don't want to work out no more. They don't
know what they want. I think folks is trifling than they was when I come
on. The times is all right and some of the people. I'm talking about
mine and yo' color both."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Dinah Perry
1800 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"Yes ma'am, I lived in slavery times. They brought me from Alabama, a
baby, right here to this place where I am at, Mr. Sterling Cockril.
"I don't know zackly when I was born but I member bout the slave times.
Yes ma'am, I do. After I growed up some, I member the overseer--I do. I
can remember Mr. Burns. I member when he took the hands to Texas. Left
the chillun and the old folks here.
"Oh Lord, this was a big plantation. Had bout four or five hundred head
of niggers.
"My mother done the milkin' and the weavin'. After free times, I wove me
a dross. My mother fixed it for me and I wove it. They'd knit stockin's
too. But now they wear silk. Don't keep my legs warm.
"I member when they fit here in Pine Bluff. I member when 'Marmajuke'
sent word he was gain' to take breakfast with Clayton that mornin' and
they just fit. I can remember that was 'Marmajuke.' It certainly was
'Marmajuke.' The Rebels tried to carry me away but the wagon was so full
I didn't get in and I was glad they didn't. My mother was runnin' from
the Rebels and she hid under the cotehouse. After the battle was over
she come back hero to the plantation.
"I had three brothers and three sisters went to Texas and I know I
didn't know em when they come back.
"I member when they fit here a bum shell fell right in the yard. It was
big around as this stovepipe and was all full of chains and things.
"After free time my folks stayed right here and worked on the shares. I
was the baby chile and never done no work till I married when I was
fifteen.
"After the War I went to school to white teachers from the North. I
never went to nothin' but them. I went till I was in the fifth grade.
"My daddy learned me to spell 'lady' and 'baker' and 'shady' fore I went
to school. I learned all my ABC's too. I got out of the first reader the
second day. I could just read it right on through. I could spell and
just stand at the head of the class till the teacher sent me to the foot
all the time.
"My daddy was his old mistress' pet. He used to carry her to school all
the time and I guess that's where he got his learnin'.
"After I was married I worked in the field. Rolled logs, cut brush,
chopped and picked cotton.
"I member when they had that 'Bachelor' (Brooks-Baxter) War up here at
Little Rock.
"After my chillun died, I never went to the field no more. I just stayed
round mongst the white folks nussin'. All the chillun I nussed is
married and grown now.
"All this younger generation--white and colored--I don't know what's
gwine come of em. The poet says:
'Each gwine a different way
And all the downward road.'"
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Dinah Perry
1002 Indiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
[TR: Appears to be same as last informant despite different address.]
"I'se bawn in Alabama and brought here to Arkansas a baby. I couldn't
tell what year I was bawn 'cause I was a baby. A chile can't tell what
year he was bawn 'less they tells him and they sure didn't tell me.
"When I'd wake up in the mawnin' my mother would be gone to the field.
"Some things I can remember good but you know old folks didn't 'low
chillun to stand around when they was talkin' in dem days. They had to
go play. They had to be mighty particular or they'd get a whippin'.
"Chillun was better in them days 'cause the old folks was strict on 'em.
Chillun is raisin' theirselves today.
"I 'member one song they used to sing
'We'll land over shore
We'll land over shore;
And we'll live forever more.'
"They called it a hymn. They'd sing it in church, then they'd all get to
shoutin'.
"Superstitions? Well, I seen a engineer goin' to work the other day and
a black cat run in front of him, and he went back 'cause he said he
would have a wreck with his train if he didn't. So you see, the white
folks believes in things like that too.
"I never was any hand to play any games 'cept 'Chick. Chick.' You'd
ketch 'hold a hands and ring up. Had one outside was the hawk and some
inside was the hen and chickens. The old mother hen would say
'Chick-a-ma, chick-a-ma, craney crow,
Went to the well to wash my toe;
When I come back my chicken was gone,
What time is it, old witch?'
One chicken was s'posed to get out and then the hawk would try to ketch
him.
"We was more 'ligious than the chillun nowadays. We used to play
preachin' and baptisin'. We'd put 'em down in the water and souse 'em
and we'd shout just like the old folk. Yes ma'am."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Alfred Peters, 1518 Bell Street,
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born seven miles from Camden.
"I was 'leven months old when they carried us to Texas. First thing I
remember I was in Texas.
"Lucius Grimm was old master. He's been dead a long time. His wife died
'bout two years after the Civil War and he died twenty-five years after.
"I 'member durin' of the war he buried his stuff---silverware and
stuff--and he never took it up. And after he died his brother's son
lived in California, and he come back and dug it up.
"The Yankees burned up four hundred bales of cotton and taken the meat
and two cribs of corn.
"I heard 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux but I never did see 'em.
"My mother said old Mars Lucius was good to his folks. She said he first
bought her and then she worried so 'bout my father, he paid twenty-five
hundred dollars for him.
"Biggest part of my life I farmed, and then I done carpenter work.
"I been blind four years. The doctor says it's cataracts.
"I think the younger generation goin' to cause another war. They ain't
studyin' nothin' but pleasure."
Interviewer: S.S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Mary Estes Peters,
3115 W. 17th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 78