erviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Alice Biggs
Holly Grove, Ark.
Age: "Bout 70"

"My mother come from Kentucky and my father from Virginia. That where
they born and I born close to Byihalia, Mississippi. My father was Louis
Anthony and mama name Charlotte Anthony.

"Grandma and her children was sold in a lump. They wasn't separated.
Grandpa was a waiter on the Confederate side. He never come back. He
died in Pennsylvania; another man come back reported that. He was a
colored waitin' man too. Grandma been dead 49 years now.

"Mama was a wash woman and a cook. They liked her. I don't remember my
father; he went off with Anthony. They lived close to Nashville,
Tennessee. He never come back. Mama lived at Nashville a while. The
master they had at the closin' of the war was good to grandma and mama.
It was Barnie Hardy and Old Kiss, all I ever heard her called. They
stayed on a while. They liked us. Held run us off if he'd had any
bother.

"The Ku Klux never come bout Barnie Hardy's place. He told em at town
not to bother his place.

"I never wanted to vote. I don't know how. I am too old to try tricks
new as that now.

"Honey, I been workinr in the field all my life. I'm what you call a
country nigger. I is a widow--just me an my son in family. Our home is
fair. We got two hundred acres of land, one cow and five hogs--pigs and
all.

"The present conditions is kind of strange. With us it is just
up-and-down-hill times. I ain't had no dealins with the young
generation. Course my son would tell you about em, but I can't. He goes
out a heap more an I do.

"I don't get no pension. I never signed up. I gets long best I can."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mandy Billings
3101 W. 14th Highland Add., Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 84

"Now I was born in 1854. That was in slavery times. That wasn't yistiday
was it? Born in Louisiana, in Sparta--that was the county seat.

"Bill Otts was my last owner. You see, how come me sold my mother was my
grandfather's baby chile and his owner promised not to separate him nary
time again. It was in the time of the Old War. Charles McLaughlin--that
was my old master--he was my father and Bill Otts, he bought my mother,
and she was sold on that account. Old Master Charles' wife wouldn't 'low
her to stay. I'm tellin' it just like they told it to me.

"We stayed with Bill Otts till we was free, and after