Prev | Current Page 233 | Next

Work Projects Administration

"Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Arkansas Narratives, Part 7"

I done quit lettin votin bother me up. All I see it do is
give one fellow out of two or three a job both of them maybe ought to
have. The meanest man often gets lected. It the money they all after not
the work in it. I heard em say what all they do and when they got lected
they forgot to do all they say they would do.
"I never knowed bout no slave uprisins. Thed had to uprose wid rocks an
red clods. The black man couldn't shoot. He had no guns. They had so
much work they didn't know how to have a uprisin. The better you be to
your master the better he treat you. The white preachers teach that in
the church."


Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Maggie Woods,
Brassfield, Ark.
Deaner Farm.
Age: 70

"My parents was Fannie and Alfred Douglas. They had three children, then
he died and my mother married a man name Thompson. My parents belong to
the Douglasses at Summerville, Tennessee. They had six children in their
family.
"I was born the second year of the surrender that make me seventy years
old. My folks was all field hands. They was all pure African stock. All
black folks like me. Grandma Liney Douglass said she was sold and
Grandpa was sold too. My own parents never was sold. The Douglass
men-folks whooped the slaves but they was good masters outside of that.


Pages:
221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245