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Brinkley, Arkansas. Mullato. Age 68
"I don't know nuthin' cept what I heard folks talk 'bout when I was a child. I was born good while after that war. My
folks lived in Scott County near Jackson, Mississippi when I was little and in slavery times too. My mother's
mistress was Miss Dolly Cruder. She was a widow and run her own farm. I don't remember her. She give her own
children a cotton patch apiece and give the women hands a patch about and they had to work it at night. If the moon
didn't give light somebody had to hold a literd (lantern) not fur from 'em so they could see to hee and work it out. I
think she had more land than hands. What they made was to be about a bale around for extra money. It took all the
day time working in the big field for Miss Dolly. I heard 'em say how tired they would be and then go work out
their own patches 'fore they go to bed. I don't remember how they said the white girls got their cotton patches
worked. And that is about all I remembers good 'nough to tell you.
"They didn't expect nothing but freedom out the war. The first my mother heard she was working doing something
and somebody say, 'What you working fur don't you know you done free?' That the first she knowed she was free.
They just passed the word round; that's how they heard it and the soldiers started coming in to their families. Some
of them some back by themselves and some come riding several of them together.
"I know they didn't give my mother nothing after the war. She washed and ironed 'bout all her life.
"The young generation is doing better than we old folks is. If there is any work to get they gets it in preference to
us. Education is helping some of 'em here in Brinkley. Some of the young ones gets good money. They teaches and
cooks. Times is hard for some.
"I live wid my son. Yes he own his house. I gets $6 from the relief. We has 'bout 'nough to live on and dat is all."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
