slavery. It was years
'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing
well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the
hardest--eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from
Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and
done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the
girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We
boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats
about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we
rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a
heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.

"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The
main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but
it was carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd
tell colored folks not to do this and that and it would get them in
trouble. The Ku Klux would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks
thought 'cause they was free they ought not work. They got to rambling
and scattered out.

"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted
different ways--sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I
don't believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for
Cleveland years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the
last war. I don't believe in war.

"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now.
Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are
restless. I see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got
grown looked so fresh and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried
now. They fixes up their face but it still show it. Folks quicker than
they used to be. They acts before they have time to think now. Times
is good for me but I see old folks need things. I see young folks
wasteful--both black and white. White folks setting the pace for us
colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Dora Jerman,
Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 60?

"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father.
Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee.
Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around
handy to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her