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Work Projects Administration

"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"

' I went through
there ninety to nothin'. I went so fast my heart hurt me.
"In slave times I remember if you wanted to go to another plantation you
had to have a pass. Paddyrollers nearly got me one night. I was on a
hoss. They was shootin' at me. I know the hoss was just stretched out
and I was layin' right down on his neck.
"I stayed in Georgia till '74. I heared em say the cotton grow so big
here in Arkansas you could sit on a limb and eat dinner. I know when I
got here they was havin' that Brooks-Baxter war in Little Rock. I say,
'Press me into the war.' Man say, 'I ain't goin' press no boys.' I say,
'Give me a gun, I can kill em.' I wanted to fight.
"I tell you where I voted--colored folks don't vote now--it was when I
was on the Davis place. I voted once or twice since I been up here. I
called myself votin' Republican. I member since I been up here you know
they had a colored man in the courthouse. When they had a grand jury
they had em mixed, some colored and some white. I say now they ain't got
no privilege. If they don't want em to vote ought not make em pay taxes.
"Up north they all sits together in the deppo but here in the south they
got a 'tition between em.


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