I
jes stop and looks and listens to see if my eyes is foolin me. I can't
see, fo de cataracts gettin bad, nohow. Things is heap better now fo de
young folks now if they would help derselves. I'm too wo out. I can't do
much like I could when I was young. The white folks don't cheat the
niggers outen what they make now bad as they did when I farmed.
I never knowed about uprisings till the Ku Klux sprung up. I never heard
bout the Nat Turner rebellion. I tell you bout the onliest man I knowed
come from Virginia. A fellow come in the country bout everybody called
Solomon. Dis long fo the war. He was a free man he said. He would go
bout mong his color and teach em fo little what they could slip him
along. He teached some to read. When freedom he went to Augusta. My
brother seed him and said "Solomon, what you doin here?" and he said "I
am er teaching school to my own color." Then he said they run him out of
Virginia cause he was learnin his color and he kept going. Some white
folks up North learned him to read and cipher. He used a black slate and
he had a book he carried around to teach folks with. He was what they
called a ginger cake color. They would whoop you if they seed you with
books learnin.
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