er git yo'.' Ha! ha! dey jest talked
'bout ghosts till I could hardly sleep at nite, but de biggest thing in
ghosts is somebody 'guised up tryin' to skeer you. Ain't no sich thing
as ghosts. Lot of niggers believe dere is do'.

"We stayed on at marsters when de surrender come cause when we wus
freed we had nothin' an' nowhere to go. Dats de truth. Mister, dats de
truth. We stayed with marster a long time an' den jest moved from one
plantation to another. It wus like dis, a crowd of tenants would get
dissatisfied on a certain plantation, dey would move, an' another gang
of niggers move in. Dat wus all any of us could do. We wus free but we
had nothin' 'cept what de marsters give us.

"When we got sick, you sees we stayed wid a doctor, he looked after us,
but we had our herbs too. We took sassafras tea, catnip an' horehound
tea an' flag. Flag wus good to ease pain. Jest make a tea of de
flagroots an' drink it hot.

"I married Kit Lassiter in Chatham County an' I had seven chilluns.
Three boys an' four girls. All am dead but two. Two girls are livin'.
One named Louie Finch, her husband dead. She stays wid me an' supports
me. She cooks an' supports me. My other livin' daughter is Venira
McLean. She lives across de street wid her husband. Her husband had a
stroke an' ain't able to wurk no more. Dey live on five dollars a week.
Dey ain't able to help me now. I moved ter Raleigh 20 years ago. My
husband died here.

"I heard 'bout de Ku Klux but dey never give our family no trouble
cause we didn't give 'em no cause to bother us. I don't know all 'bout
slavery but I 'members dere wus a lot of big fat greasy niggers goin'
around, an' I reckin dey fared good or dey wouldn't a been so fat. Dey
got plenty to eat even if dey did wurk 'em.

"I believe slavery wus all rite whur slaves wus treated right. I haint
got nuff edication to tell you nothin' 'bout Lincoln an' dem udder men.
Heard 'em say he come thro', reckon he did too. I belong to the 'United
Holiness Church'."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: HW: New Hill (Newhill P.O.), Wake County.]

N.C. District: No. 3
Worker: Travis Jordan
Subject: Dave Lawson
Ex-Slave Story
Lived at Blue Wing, N.C.

[TR: Date stamp: AUG 8 1937]

DAVE LAWSON
EX-SLAVE

MY FATHER WHO KNEW THE PRINCIPLE
CHARACTERS TOLD ME THIS STORY YEARS AGO

"Yes, suh, de wus' I knows 'bout slavery times is what dey tols me
'bout how come d