"The Ku Klux never did interfere with us. They never come to our house. I have seen them.

"When papa come from war it was all over. We knowed it was freedom. Everybody was in a stir and talking and going somewhere. He had got his fill of freedom in the war. He said turn us all out to freeze and starve. He stayed with the Hayes till he died and mama died and all of us scattered out when Mr. Walker Hayes lost his land.

"Ladies used to be too fine to be voting. I'm too old now. My men-folks said they voted. They come home and say how they voted all I know about voting.

"Walker Avenue in Memphis is named for Mr. Walker Hayes and Macremore was named for him or by him one.

"We never was give a thing at freedom but papa was buying a place from his master and got in debt and sold it. I don't own a home.

"I have high blood pressure and the Welfare gives me $8 a month. I'm not able to work. When you been used to a good plenty it is mighty bad to get mighty near helpless."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Senia Rassberry
     810 Catalpa Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 84

"Yes'm, I know what I hear em say. Well, in slavery times I helped make the soldiers' clothes.

"I was born on the old Jack Hall place on the Arkansas River in Jefferson County.

"I know I was 'leven years old when peace declared. I reckon I can member fore the War started. I know I was bastin' them coats and pants.

"My old master's name was Jack Hall and old mistress' name was Priscilla. Oh, yes'm, they was good to me—just as good to me as they could be. But ever' once in awhile they'd call me and say, 'Senia.' I'd say, 'What you want?' They say, 'Wasn't you out there doin' so and so?' I'd say, 'No.' They say, 'Now, you're tellin' a lie' and they'd whip me.

"I was the house girl, me and my sister. My mammy was the cook.

"Old master had two plantations. Sometimes he had a overseer and sometimes he didn't.

"Oh, they had plenty to eat, hog meat and cracklin' bread. Yes ma'am. I loved that, I reckon. I et so much of it then I don't hardly ever want it now. They had so much to eat. Blackberry cobbler? Oh Lawd.

"How many brothers and sisters? Me? My dear, I don't know how many I had but I heard my mother say that all the chillun she did have, that she had 'leven chillun.

"Our white folks took us to Texas durin' of the War. I think my old master said we stayed there three years. My mother died there with a congestive chill.

"We come back here to Arkansas after freedom and I think my father worked for Jack Hall three or four years. He wouldn't let him leave. He raised my father and thought so much of him. He worked on the shares.

"After freedom I went to school. I learnt to read and write but I just wouldn't do it. I learnt the other chillun though. I did that. I was into ever'thing. I learnt them that what I could do. Blue Back? Them's the very ones I studied.

"In slavery times I had to rise as early as I could. Old master would give me any little thing around the house that I wanted. They said he was too old to go to war. Some of the hands run off but I didn't know where they went to.

"Some of the people was better off slaves than they was free. I don't study bout things now but sometimes seems like all them things comes before me.

"I used to hear em talkin' bout old Jeff Davis. I didn't know what they was talkin' bout but I heered em.

"I was sixteen when I married and I had eleven chillun. All dead but four.

"Yes'm, I been treated good all my life by white and black. All of em loved me seemed like.

"I been livin' in Arkansas all my life. I never have worked in the field. I always worked in the house. I always was a seamstress—made pants for the men on the place.

"After I come here to Pine Bluff I worked for the white folks. Used to cook and wash and iron. Done a lot of work. I did that.

"I been blind 'leven years but I thank the Lord I been here that long. Glory to Jesus! Oh, Lord have mercy! Glory, glory, glory to Jesus!"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Clay Reaves, (light mulatto, large man)
     Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 80

"I will be eighty years old my next birthday. It will be July 6th. Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn't tell you about him. He stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and left. He didn't live with mother ever again. I never did hear no reason. He went on Joe Night's farm. He left me and a sister older but there was one dead between us. Mother raised us. She stayed on with the Reaves two years after he left. The last year she was there she hired to them. The only thing she ever done before freedom was cook and weave. She had her loom in the kitchen. It was a great big kitchen built off from the house and a portico joined it to the house. I used to lay up under her loom. It was warm there in winter time. I was the baby. I heard mother say some things I remember well.

"She said she was never sold. She said the Reaves said her children need never worry, they would never be sold. We was Reaves from back yonder. Mother's grandfather was a white man. She was a Reaves and her children are mostly Reaves. She was light. Father was about, might be a little darker than I am (mulatto). At times she worked in the field, but in rush time. She wove all the clothes on the place. She worked at the loom and I lay up under there all day long. Mother had three girls and five boys.

"Mr. Reaves, we called him master, had two boys in the army. He was a real old man. He may have had more than two but I know there was two gone off. The white folks lived in sight of the quarters. Their house was a big house and painted white. I've been in there. I never seen no grand parents of mine that I was allowed to claim kin with.

"When I got up some size I was allowed to go see father. I went over to see him sometimes. After freedom he went to where his brothers lived. They wanted him to change his name from Reaves to Cox and he did. He changed it from James Reaves to James Cox. But I couldn't tell you if at one time they belong to Cox in Kentucky or if they belong to Cox in Tennessee or if they took on a name they liked.

"I kept my name Reaves. I am a Reaves from start to finish. I was raised by mother and she was a Reaves. Her name was Olive Reaves. Her old mistress' name was Charlotte Reaves, old master was Edmond Reaves. Now the boys I come to know was John, Bob; girls, Mary and Jane. There was older children. Mother was a sensible, obedient woman. Nobody ever treated her very wrong. She was the only one ever chastised me. They spoiled me. We got plenty plain rations. I never seen nobody married till after the surrender. I seen one woman chastised. I wasn't close. I never learned what it was about. Old Master Reaves was laying it on.

"Mother moved to New Castle, Tennessee from Mr. Reaves' place. We farmed—three of us. We had been living southeast of Boliver, Tennessee, in Hardeman County. I think my kin folks are all dead. Father's other children may be over in Tennessee now. Yes, I know them. Mother died over at Palestine with me. She always lived with me. I married twice, had one child by each wife. Both wives are dead and my children are dead.

"Mother said I had three older brothers went to the Civil War and never come back home. She never heard from them after they went off. I don't know but it was my understanding that they was to be soldiers. I don't recollect them.

"Mother got so she wasn't able to work in the field several years before she died. She worked in the field long as she was able. She lived with me all my whole life till she died. But I farmed. Some