Prev | Current Page 215 | Next

Work Projects Administration

"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"

The government allows me and my wife
together eight dollars a month. I asked for more, but I couldn't get it.
I get commodities too. They amount to about a dollar and a half a month.
They don't give any flour or meat. Last month they gave some eggs and
those were nice. What they give is a help to a man in my condition.
"I don't know where I was born and I don't know when. I know I am
eighty-two or eighty-three years old. The white folks that raised me
told me how old I was. I never saw my father and my mother in my life. I
don't know nothin'. I'm Just on old green man. I don't know none of my
kin people--father, mother, uncles, cousins, nothin'. When I found
myself the white people had me.
"That was right down here in Arkansas here on old Dick Fletcher's farm.
There was a big family of them Fletchers. They took me to Harriet
Lindsay to raise. She is dead. She had a husband and he is dead. She had
two or three daughters and they are dead.

Slave Houses
"I can remember what they used to live in. The slaves lived in old
wooden houses. They ain't living in no houses now--one-half of them.
They were log houses--two rooms. I have forgot what kind of
floors--dirt, I guess.


Pages:
203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227