"I reckon I did live in slavery times--look at my hair.
"I been down sick--I been right low and they didn't speck me to live.
"Well, I'll tell you. I was old enough to know when they runned us to
Texas so the Yankees couldn't overtaken us. We was in Texas when freedom
come, I remember I was sittin on the fence when the soldiers in them
blue uniforms with gold buttons come. He said, "I come to tell you you
is free". I didn't know what it was all about but everybody was sayin'
"Thank God". I thought it was the judgment day and I was lookin' for
God. I said to myself, I'm goin' have some buttons like that some day.
"Colonel Williams was my marster. My mother was a nurse and took care of
the colored folks when they was sick. I remember when people wasn't
given nothin' but blue mass, calomel, castor oil and gruel, and every
body was healthier than they is now.
"I'm the only one livin' that my mother birthed in this world. I was
born here, but I been travelin', I been to Memphis and around.
"No mam, I don't remember nothin' else. I done tole you all I know."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: J.W. Whitfield
3100 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 60
Occupation: Preacher
"My father's name was Luke Whitfield.
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