|
|
300 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 86
"I should say I was born in slavery times! Now if you ask me something I don't know, I couldn't tell you, honey,
'cause I believe in people tellin' the truth.
"In a way I know how old I is. I give what my white folks give me. They told me I was born in 1852. Yes ma'am,
my young missis used to set down and work on me. She'd say, 'Get it in your head' 'cause I ain't got no education.
"I 'member my old missis. Know her name as good as I do mine. Name was Maria Whitley. After old master died,
his property was divided and Jim Whitley drawed me and my mother and my sister. Yes ma'am, it was my sister.
"Goldsboro, North Carolina is where I was born, in Johnston County.
"Do I 'member anything 'bout peace declared? I should say I do---'member long time 'fore it come.
"I seed so many different regiments of people I didn't know which was which. I know the Yankees called ever'body
Dinah. They'd say to me, 'Dinah, hold my horse,' and my hands would be full of bridles. And they'd say, 'You got
anything buried?' The white folks had done buried the meat under my mother's house. And say, 'Is they good to
you?' If they hadn't a been we wouldn't a known any better than to tell it.
"I 'member they found where the meat was buried and they ripped up my mother's feather bed and filled it full of
hams and shoulders, and there wasn't a middlin' in the lot. And kill chickens and geese! The got ever'thing and
anything they wanted.
"There was a battle-field about four miles from us where they fit at.
"Honey, I can't tell it like I know it, but I know it.
"Old master was a good man. You had plenty to eat and plenty to wear And on Monday morning all his colored
folks had clean clothes. I wish I could tell it like I know. He was a good man but he had as mean a wife as ever saw.
She used to be Nettie Sherrod and she did not like a black fact Yes ma'am, Jim Whitley was a good man but his
father was a devill.
"If Massa Jim had a hand he couldn't control, he sold him. He said I wasn't goin' to beat 'em or have 'em run off and
stay in the woods. Yes'n that was my master, Jim Whitley.
"His overseer was Zack Hill when peace declared.
"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in 1889. They emigranted us here. They sure
said they had fritter trees and molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters would fall in the pond.
You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't believe that. Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was
times when you coul make good money here.
"I know I is a slave time chile. I fared well but I sure did see som that didn't.
"Our white folks had hands that didn't do nothin' but make clothes an sheets and kivers.
"Baby, them Ku Klux was a pain. The paddyrollers was bad enough but them Ku Klux done lots of devilment. Yes
ma'am, they done some devilment.
"I worked for a white man once was a Ku Klux, but I didn't know it for a long time. One time he said, 'Now when
you're foolin' around in my close cleanin' up, I want you to be pertickler.' I seed them rubber pants what they filled
with water. I reckon he had enough things for a hundred men. His wife say, 'Now, Talitha, don't let on you know
what them things is.'
"Now my father belonged to the Adkins. He and my mother was married with a stiffcate 'fore peace declared and
after peace declared they got a license and was married just like they marry now.
"My master used to ask us chillun, 'Do your folks pray at night?' We said 'no' 'cause our folks had told us what to
say. But the Lawd have mercy, there was plenty of that goin' on. They'd pray, 'Lawd, deliver us from under
bondage.'
"Colored folks used to go to the white folks' church. I was raised up under the old Primitive Baptist feet washin'
church. Oh, that's a time, baby!
"What I think of the younger generation? I don't know what to think of 'em. I don't think--I know they is goin' too
fast.
"I learned how to read the Bible after I 'fessed religion. Yes ma'am, I can read the Bible, praise the Lawd!"
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
