worked for Miss
Bessie and Mr. John Stewart last fore I come with Dr. Hill. I had lived
up there but he come and settled down in Mississippi.

The first place I worked on in Arkansas was the John Reeds bout 3 miles
from Danville. I stayed there 3 years. My folks stayed on there but I
rambled to Little Rock. I worked with Mr. L.C. Merrill. I milked cows
and cut grass, fed cows. He has a automobile company in Little Rock now.
I farmed bout all my life. Now I don't own nothing. I stays at my
daughters. I been married twice. Both my wives dead.

The times change so much I don't know whether they any better or not.
The black race ain't never had nuthin--some few gets a little headway
once in a while.

I used to vote some--didn't care nuthin bout it much. Never seed no good
come of it. Heap of them vote tickets like somebody tell em or don't
know how dey vote.

The young generations better off than the old folks now. The things
change so fast I don't know how they will get by.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: William Brown
409 W. Twenty-Fifth Street
North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 78

[HW: U.S. Dictatorship Predicted]

"I was born in Arkansas in Cross County at the foot of Crowley's Ridge
on the east side of the Ridge and just about twelve miles from Old
Wittsburg, on May 3, 1861. I got the date from my mother. She kept dates
by the old family Bible. I don't know where she got her learning. She
had a knowledge of reading. I am about her sixth child. She was the
mother of thirteen.

"My mother's master was named Bill Neely. Her mistress was named Mag
Neely.

"My mother was one of the leading plow hands on Bill Neely's farm. She
had a old mule named Jane. When the Yankees would come down, Bill Neely
and all his friends would leave home. They would leave when they would
hear the cannon, because they said that meant the Yankees were coming.
When Neely went away, he would carry my mother to do his cooking.

"She would leave the children there and carry just the baby when she
went. Old Aunt Malinda--she wasn't our aunt; she was just an old lady we
called Aunt Malinda who cooked for the kitchen--would cook for us while
she was gone. When the Yankees had passed through, my mother and the
master would all come back.

"My original name was not Brown. It was Pope. I became Brown after the
War was over. I moved on the old Barnes' farm. When the soldiers w