my mother had fifteen children and I was the the thirteenth child. I am
the only boy among the first set, called to the ministry. And there was
one in the second set. Father learned to read and write after freedom.
"After freedom he sent my oldest brother and sister to Hampton, Virginia
and they were graduated from Hampton Institute and later taught school.
They were graduated from the same school Booker T. Washington was. He
got his idea of vocational education there.
"I haven't had much education. I went as far as the eighth grade. The
biggest education I have had was in the Conference.
"I joined the Little Rock General Conference at Texarkana in 1914. This
was the Methodist Episcopal, North, and I was ordained as a deacon and
later an elder by white bishops. Then in 1930 I joined the African
Methodist.
"By trade I am a carpenter and bricklayer. I served an apprentice under
my father and under a German contractor.
"I used to be called the best negro journeyman carpenter between Monroe,
Louisiana and Little Rock, Arkansas.
"I made quite a success in my trade. I have a couple of United States
Patent Rights. One is a brick mold holding ten bricks and used to make
bricks of concrete. The other is a sliding door. (See attached drawings)
[TR: Drawings missing.]
"I was in the mercantile business two and one-half years in Sevier
County. I sold that because it was too confining and returned to the
carpenter's trade. I still practice my trade some now.
"I have not had to ask help from anyone. I have helped others. I own my
home and I sent my daughter to Fisk University where she was graduated.
While there she met a young man and they were later married and now live
in Chicago. They own their home and are doing well.
"In my work in the ministry I am trying to teach my people to have
higher ideals. We have to bring our race to that high ideal of race
integrity. I am trying to keep the negro from thinking he is hated by
the upper class of white people. What the negro needs is
self-consciousness to the extent that he aspires to the higher
principles in order to stand on an equal plane in attainment but not in
a social way.
"At present, the negro's ideals are too low for him to visualize the
evils involved in race mixture. He needs to be lifted in his own
estimation and learn that a race cannot be estimated by other races--by
anything else but their own ideals.
"The younger generation is off on a tangent. They'll have to hit
something before they stop.
"The salvation of our people--of all people--white and colored, is
leadership. We've got to have vision and try to give the people vision.
Not to live for ourselves but for all. The present generation is
selfish. The life should flow out and as it flows out it makes room for
more life. If it does not flow out, it congeals and ferments.
Selfishness is just like damming a stream.
"I think Woodrow Wilson won the World War with his fourteen points of
democracy. If the people of foreign countries had not that old
imperialism sentiment, the Jew would not be where he is today."
Interviewer's Comment
This man is the best informed and most sensible negro I have
interviewed. In the room where I interviewed him, were a piano, a radio,
many ferns, a wool rug, chairs, divan, and a table on which were books
including a set of the Standard History of the World. I asked if he had
read the history and he replied, "Not all of it but I have read the
volumes pertaining to the neolithic age."
On the walls were several pictures and two tapestries.
The house was a good frame one and electric current was used.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Enoch Beel; Green Grove, Hazen, Arkansas
Age: 79
"Yes maam I was born a slave, born in slavery times. I wer born in
Hardman County, Tennessee. My own daddy was a Union soldier and my mama
was a cook fer the mistress. We belonged to Miss Viney and Dr. Jim Mass.
My daddy drawed a pension fer bein a soldier till he die. He went off to
wait on some men he know. Then he met some men wanted him to join the
army. They said then he get paid and get a bounty. No maam he never got
a red cent. He come back broke as he went off. He say he turned loose
soon as he could and mustered out and lef them right now. He had no time
to ax em no questions. That what he said! We stayed on that place till I
was big nuf to do a days work. We had no other place to go. There was
plenty land and no stock. Houses to stay in got scarce. If a family had
a place to stay at when that war ended he counted hisself lucky I tell
you. Heap of black an white jes ramlin round through the woods an over
the roads huntin a little to eat or a little sumpin to do. If you stay
in the field workin about puttin back the fences an round yo own house
you wouldn't be hurt.
"The Ku Kluxes war not huntin work theirselves. They was keepin order at
the gatherins and down the public roads. Folks had came toted off all
the folks made in the crops till they don't call nuthin stealin'. They
whooped em and made em ride on rails. I don't know all the carrings on
did take place. I sho would been scared if I seed em comin to me. We
left Dr. Mass and went to Grain, Tennessee. I had three sisters and
half-brothers. I don't remember how many, some dead. I farmed all my
life. Everybody said the land was so much better and newer out in
Arkansas. When I married I come to Tomberlin and worked fer Sam Dardnne
bout twelve years. Then I rented from Jim Hicks at England. I rented
from one of the Carlley boys and Jim Neelam. When I very fust come here
I worked at Helena on a farm one year. When I got my leg taken off it
cost bout all I ever had cumlated. I lives on my sister's place. Henry
Bratcher's wife out at Green Grove. The Wellfare give me $8 cause I
caint get bout.
"I don't know bout the times. It is so unsettled. Folks want work caint
get it and some won't work that could. You caint get help so you can
make a crop of your own no more, fer sometimes is close."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Sophie D. Belle, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 77
"I was born near Knoxville, Georgia. My mother was a professional pastry
cook. She was a house woman during slavery. She was owned by Lewis Hicks
and Ann Hicks. They had Saluda, Mary, Lewis, and Oscar.
"Mother was never sold. Mr. Hicks reared her. She was three-fourths
Indian. Her father was George Hicks. Gordon carried him to Texas. Mr.
Bob Gordon was mean. He asked Mr. Hicks to keep mother and auntie while
he went to Texas, Mr. Gordon was so mean. My mother had two little girls
but my sister died while small.
"I never saw any one sold. I never saw a soldier. But I noticed the
grown people whispering many times. Mother explained it to me, they had
some news from the War. Aunt Jane said she saw them pass in gangs. I
heard her say, 'Did you see the soldiers pass early this morning?' I was
asleep. Sometimes I was out at play when they passed.
"Master Hicks called us all up at dinner one day to the big house. He
told us, 'You are free as I am.' I never had worked any then. No, they
cried and went on to their homes. Aunt Jane was bad to speak out, she
was so much Indian. She had three children. She went to another place to
live. She was in search of her husband and thought he might be there at
Ft. Valley.
"Mother stayed on another year. Mr. Hicks was good to us. None of the
children ever worked till they was ten or twelve years old. He had a lot
of slaves and about twenty-five children on the place growing. He had
just a big plantation. He had a special cook, Aunt Mariah, to cook for
the field hands. They eat like he did. Master Hicks would examine their
buckets and a great big split basket. If they didn't have enough to eat
he would have her cook more and send to them. They had nice victuals to
eat. He had a bell to ring for all the children to be put to bed at
sundown and they slept late. He said, 'Let them grow.' Their diet was
milk and bread and eggs. We had duck eggs, guinea eggs, goose eggs, and
turkey eggs.
"I don't know what all the slaves had but mother had feather beds. They
saved all kind of feathers to make pillows and bed and chair cushions.
We always had a pet pig about our place. Master Hicks kept a drove of
pea-fowls. He had cows, goats, sheep. We children loved the lambs.
Elvira attended to the milk. She had some of the girls and boys to milk.
Uncle Dick, mother's brother, was Mr. Hicks' coachman. He was raised on
the place too.
"I think Master Hicks and his family was French, but, though they were
light-skin people. They had light hair too, I think.
"One day a Frenchman (white) that was a doctor come to call. My Aunt
Jane said to me, 'He is your papa. That is your papa.' I saw him many
times after that. I am considered eight-ninth white race. One little
girl up at the courthouse asked me a question and I told her she was too
young to know about such sin. (This girl was twenty-four years old and
the case worker's stenographer.)
"Master Hicks had Uncle Patrick bury his silver and gold in the woods.
It was in a trunk. The hair and hide was still on the trunk when the War
ceased. He used his money to pay the slaves that worked on his place
after freedom.
"I went to school to a white man from January till May and mother paid
him one dollar a month tuition. After I married I went to school three
terms. I married quite young. Everyone did that far back.
"I married at Aunt Jane's home. We got married and had dinner at one or
two o'clock. Very quiet. Only a few friends and my relatives. I wore a
green wool traveling dress. It was trimmed in black velvet and black
beads. I married in a hat. At about seven o'clock we went to ny
husband's home at Perry, Georgia. He owned a new buggy. We rode thirty
miles. We had a colored minister to marry us. He was a painter and a
fine provider. He died. I had no children.
"I came to Forrest City 1874. There was three dry-goods and grocery
stores and two saloons here--five stores in all. I come alone. Aunt Jane
and Uncle Sol had migrated here. My mother come with me. There was one
railroad through here. I belong to the Baptist church.
"I married the second time at Muskogee, Oklahoma. My husband lived out
there. He was Indian-African. He was a Baptist minister. We never had
any children. I never had a child. They tell me now if I had married
dark men I would maybe had children. I married very light men both
times.
"I washed and ironed, cooked and kept house. I sewed for the public,
black and white. I washed and ironed for Mrs. Grahan at Crockettsville
twenty-three years and three months. I inherited a home here. Owned a
home here in Forrest City once. I live with my cousin here. He uses that
house for his study. He is a Baptist minister. (The church is in front
of their home--a very nice new brick church--ed.) I'm blind now or I
could still sew, wash and iron some maybe.
"I get eight dollars from the Social Welfare. I do my own cooking in the
kitchen. I am seventy-seven years old. I try to live as good as my age.
Every year I try to live a little better, 'A little sweeter as the years
go by.'"
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Cyrus Bellus
1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 73
[HW: Made Own Cloth]
"I was born in Mississippi in 1865 in Jefferson County. It was on the
tenth of March. My father's name was Cyrus Bellus, the same as mine. My
mother's name was Matilda Bellus.
"My father's master was David Hunt. My father and mother both belonged
to him. They had the same master. I don't know the names of my
grandfather and mother. I think they were Jordons. No, I know my
grandmother's name was Annie Hall, and my grandfather's name was Stephen
Hall. Those were my mother's grandparents. My father's father was named
John Major and his mother was named Dinah Major. They belonged to the
Hunts. I don't know why the names was different. I guess he wasn't their
first master.
Slave Sales, Whippings, Work
"I have heard my folks talk about how they were traded off and how they
used to have to work. Their master wouldn't allow them to whip his
hands. No, it was the mistress that wouldn't allow them to be whipped.
They had hot words about that sometimes.
"The slaves had to weave cotton and knit sox. Sometimes they would work
all night, weaving cloth, and spinning thread. The spinning would be
done first. They would make cloth for all the hands on the place.
"They used to have tanning vats to make shoes with too. Old master
didn't know what it was to buy shoes. Had a man there to make them.
"My father and mother were both field hands. They didn't weave or spin.
My grandmother on my mother's side did that. They were supposed to
pick--the man, four hundred pounds of cotton, and the woman three
hundred. And that was gittin' some cotton. If they didn't come up to the
task, they was took out and give a whipping. The overseer would do the
thrashing. The old mistress and master wouldn't agree on that whipping.
Fun
"The slaves were allowed to get out and have their fun and play and
'musement for so many hours. Outside of those hours, they had to be
found in their house. They had to use fiddles. They had dancing just
like the boys do now. They had knockin' and rasslin' and all such like
now.
Church
"So for as serving God was concerned, they had to take a kettle and turn
it down bottom upward and then old master couldn't hear the singing and
prayin'. I don't know just how they turned the kettle to keep the noise
from goin' out. But I heard my father and mother say they did it. The
kettle would be on the inside of the cabin, not on the outside.
House, Furniture, Food
"The slaves lived in log houses instead of ones like now with
weather-boarding. The two ends duffed in. They always had them so they
would hold a nice family. Never had any partitions to make rooms. It was
just a straight long house with one window and one door.
"Provisions were weighed out to them. They were allowed four pounds of
meat and a peck of meal for each working person. They only provided for
the working folks. If I had eight in a family, I would just get the same
amount. There was no provisions for children.
"But all the children on the place were given something from the big
house. The working folks ate their breakfast before daylight in the log
cabin where they lived. They ate their supper at home too. They was
allowed to get back home by seven or eight o'clock. The slaves on my
place never ate together. I don't know anything about that kind of
feeding.
"They had nurses, old folks that weren't able to work any longer. All
the children would go to the same place to be cared for and the old
people would look after them. They wasn't able to work, you know. They
fed the children during the day.
How Freedom Came
"My father and mother and grandmother said the overseer told them that
they were free. I guess that was in 1865, the same year I was born. The
overseer told them that they didn't have any owner now. They was free
folks. The boss man told them too--had them to come up to the big house
and told them they had to look out for themselves now because they were
free as he was.
Right After the War
"Right after emancipation, my folks were freed. The boss man told them
they could work by the day or sharecrop or they could work by groups. A
group of folks could go together and work and the boss man would pay
them so much a day. I believe they worked for him a good while--about
seven or eight years at least. They was in one of the groups.
Earliest Recollections
"My own earliest recollections was of picking cotton in one of those
squads--the groups I was telling you about. After that, the people got
to renting land and renting stock for themselves. They sharecropped
then. It seems to me that everybody was satisfied. I don't remember any
one saying that he was cheated or beat out of anything.
Schooling
"We had a public school to open in Jefferson County, Mississippi. We
called it Dobbins Bridge. There was a bridge about a mile long built
across the creek. We had two colored women for teachers. Their names was
Mary Howard and Hester Harris. They only used two teachers in that
school. I attended there three years to those same two women.
"We had a large family and I quit to help take care of it.
Ku Klux
"I don't think there was much disturbance from the Ku Klux on that
plantation. The colored folks didn't take much part in politics.
Later Life
"I stopped school and went to work for good at about fifteen years. I
worked at the field on that same plantation I told you about. I worked
there for just about ten years. Then I farmed at the same place on
shares. I stayed there till I was 'bout twenty-six years old. Then I
moved to Wilderness Place in the Cotton Belt in Mississippi. I farmed
there for two years.
"I farmed around Greenville, Mississippi for a while. Then I left
Greenville and came to Arkansas. I come straight to Little Rock. The
first thing I did I went into the lumber grading. I wasn't trained to
it, but I went into it at the request of the men who employed me. I
stayed in that eight years. I learned the lumber grading and checking.
Checking is seeing the size and width and length and kind of lumber and
seeing how much of it there is in a car without taking it out, you know.
"I married about 1932. My wife is dead. We never had any children.
"I haven't worked any now in five years. I have been to the hospital in
the east end. I get old age assistance--eight dollars and commodities."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Bob Benford
209 N. Maple Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79
"Slavery-time folks? Here's one of em. Near as I can get at it, I'se
seventy-nine. I was born in Alabama. My white folks said I come from
Perry County, Alabama, but I come here to this Arkansas country when I
was small.
"My old master was Jim Ad Benford. He was good to us. I'm goin' to tell
you we was better off then than now. Yes ma'am, they treated us right.
We didn't have to worry bout payin' the doctor and had plenty to eat.
"I recollect the shoemaker come and measured my feet and directly he'd
bring me old red russet shoes. I thought they was the prettiest things I
ever saw in my life.
"Old mistress would say, 'Come on here, you little niggers' and she'd
sprinkle sugar on the meat block and we'd just lick sugar.
"I remember the soldiers good, had on blue suits with brass buttons.
"I'se big enough to ride old master's hoss to water. He'd say, 'Now,
Bob, don't you run that hoss' but when I got out of sight, I was bound
to run that hoss a little.
"I didn't have to work, just stayed in the house with my mammy. She was
a seamstress. I'm tellin' you the truth now. I can tell it at night as
well as daytime.
"We lived in Union County. Old master had a lot of hands. Old mistress'
name was Miss Sallie Benford. She just as good as she could be. She'd
come out to the quarters to see how we was gettin' along. I'd be so glad
when Christmas come. We'd have hog killin' and I'd get the bladders and
blow em up to make noise--you know. Yes, lady, we'd have a time.
"I recollect when Marse Jim broke up and went to Texas. Stayed there
bout a year and come back. [HW: migration?]
"When the war was over I recollect they said we was free but I didn't
know what that meant. I was always free.
"After freedom mammy stayed there on the place and worked on the shares.
I don't know nothin' bout my father. They said he was a white man.
"I remember I was out in the field with mammy and had a old mule. I
punched him with a stick and he come back with them hoofs and kicked me
right in the jaw--knocked me dead. Lord, lady, I had to eat mush till I
don't like mush today. That was old Mose--he was a saddle mule.
"Me? I ain't been to school a day in my life. If I had a chance to go I
didn't know it. I had to help mammy work. I recollect one time when she
was sick I got into a fight and she cried and said, 'That's the way you
does my child' and I know she died next week.
"After that I worked here and there. I remember the first run I worked
for was Kinch McKinney of El Dorado.
"I remember when I was just learnin' to plow, old mule knew five hundred
times more than I did. He was graduated and he learnt me.
"I made fifty-seven crops in my lifetime. Me and Hance Chapman--he was
my witness when I married--we made four bales that year. That was in
1879. His father got two bales and Hance and me got two. I made money
every year. Yes ma'am, I have made some money in my day. When I moved
from Louisiana to Arkansas I sold one hundred eighty acres of land and
three hundred head of hogs. I come up here cause my chillun was here and
my wife wanted to come here. You know how people will stroll when they
get grown. Lost everything I had. Bought a little farm here and they
wouldn't let me raise but two acres of cotton the last year I farmed and
I couldn't make my payments with that. Made me plow up some of the
prettiest cotton I ever saw and I never got a cent for it.
"Lady, nobody don't know how old people is treated nowdays. But I'm
livin' and I thank the Lord. I'm so glad the Lord sent you here, lady. I
been once a man and twice a child. You know when you're tellin' the
truth, you can tell it all the time.
"Klu Klux? The Lord have mercy! In '74 and '75 saw em but never was
bothered by a white man in my life. Never been arrested and never had a
lawsuit in my life. I can go down here and talk to these officers any
time.
"Yes ma'am, I used to vote. Never had no trouble. I don't know what
ticket I voted. We just voted for the man we wanted. Used to have
colored men on the grand jury--half and half--and then got down to one
and then knocked em all out.
"I never done no public work in my life but when you said farmin' you
hit me then.
"Nother thing I never done. I bought two counterpins once in my life on
the stallments and ain't never bought nothin' since that way. Yes ma'am,
I got a bait of that stallment buying. That's been forty years ago.
"I know one time when I was livin' in Louisiana, we had a teacher named
Arvin Nichols. He taught there seventeen years and one time he passed
some white ladies and tipped his hat and went on and fore sundown they
had him arrested. Some of the white men who knew him went to court and
said what had he done, and they cleared him right away. That was in the
'80's in Marion, Louisiana, in Union Parish."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Carrie Bradley Logan Bennet, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 79 plus
"I was born not a great piece from Mobile but it was in Mississippi in
the country. My mother b'long to Massa Tom Logan. He was a horse trader.
He got drowned in 1863--durin' of the War, the old war. His wife was
Miss Liza Jane. They had several children and some gone from home I jus'
seed when they be on visits home. The ones at home I can recollect was
Tiney, John, Bill, and Alex. I played wid Tiney and nursed Bill and Alex
was a baby when Massa Tom got drowned.
"We never knowed how Massa Tom got drowned. They brought him home and
buried him. His horse come home. He had been in the water, water was
froze on the saddle. They said it was water soaked. They thought he swum
the branch. Massa Tom drunk some. We never did know what did happen. I
didn't know much 'bout 'em.
"He had two or three families of slaves. Ma cooked, washed and ironed
for all on the place. She went to the field in busy times. Three of the
men drove horses, tended to 'em. They fed 'em and curried and sheared
'em. Ma said Massa Tom sure thought a heap of his niggers and fine
stock. They'd bring in three or four droves of horses and mules, care
fer 'em, take 'em out sell 'em. They go out and get droves, feed 'em up
till they looked like different from what you see come there. He'd sell
'em in the early part of the year. He did make money. I know he muster.
My pa was the head blacksmith on Masaa Tom's place, them other men
helped him along.
"I heard ma say no better hearted man ever live than Massa Tom if you
ketch him sober. He give his men a drink whiskey 'round every once in
awhile. I don't know what Miss Liza Jane could do 'bout it. She never
done nothin' as ever I knowed. They sent apples off to the press and all
of us drunk much cider when it come home as we could hold and had some
long as it lasts. It turn to vinegar. I heard my pa laughing 'bout the
time Massa Tom had the Blue Devils. He was p'isoned well as I understood
it. It muster been on whiskey and something else. I never knowed it. His
men had to take keer of 'em. He acted so much like he be crazy they
laughed 'bout things he do. He got over it.