religious activities--Member of Palestine Baptist
Church.

9. Description of informant--Medium height, plump, light complexion and
gray hair.

10. Other points gained in interview--Injured in auto wreck seven years
ago.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Roberta Shaver, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 50

"I was born close to Natchez, Mississippi. Grandma was sold at Wickerson
County, Mississippi. They took her in a wagon to Jackson, Tennessee. She
was mother of two children. They took them. She was part Indian. She was
a farm woman. Her name was Dicy Jackson. They sold her away from the
Jacksons to Dobbins. She was a house woman in Jackson, Tennessee. She
said they was good to her in Tennessee. Grandma never was hit a lick in
slavery. Grandpa was whooped a time or two. He run off to the woods for
weeks and come back starved. He tended to the stock and drove Master
Clayton around. He was carriage driver when they wanted to go places.

"After freedom grandma set out to get back to grandpa. Walked and rode
too I reckon. She brought her children back. After a absence of
five years she and grandpa went back together. They met at Natchez,
Mississippi. Mama was born after freedom.

"The way grandma said she was sold was, a strange man come there one day
and the master had certain ones he would sell stand in a line and
this strange man picked out the ones he wanted and had them get their
belongings and put them in the wagon and took them on off. She never
seen grandpa for five years."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Shaw
1118 Palm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 77
Occupation: Laundry work

"I was born in Bolivar County, Mississippi. My mother didn't know how
old I was but after freedom I went by Miss Ann Blanchet's--that was my
mother's old missis--and she said I was born in 1861.

"But I don't know nothin' 'bout slavery or the War. I was born and bred
in the desert and my mother said it was a long time after freedom 'fore
she knowed anything about it. She said there was just lots of the folks
said, to their knowin', they had been free three years 'fore they knowed
anything about it.

"My husband brought me to Arkansas when I was 35 and I been workin' in
the same family, Captain Jeter's family, ever since-forty odd years.

"I always have worked hard. I've had the flu only reason I'm sittin'
here now. If I had to sit and hold my h