She was a Yankee
woman. I left and I never cooked out no more.
"I never had no dealings with the Ku Klux. I was in Atlanta then. I
heard my mother say they killed and beat up a lot of colored people in
the country where she was. Seem like they was mad 'cause they was free.
"Times was hard after freedom. Times is hard now for some folks. Times
running away with the white and black races both. They stop thinking.
The thing what they call education done ruined this country. The folks
quit work and living on education. I learned to work. My husband was a
good shoemaker. We laid up all we could. I got seven houses renting
around here. I gets about forty or forty-five dollars a month rent. It
do very well, I reckon."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person Interviewed: Robert Farmer
1612 Battery Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 84
[HW: Tale of a "Nigger Ruler"]
"I was born in North Carolina. I can't tell when. Our names are in the
Bible, and it was burnt up. My old master died and my young master was
to go to the war, the Civil War, in the next draft. I remember that they
said, 'If them others had shot right, I wouldn't have had to go.'
"He talked like they were standing up on a table or something shooting
at the Yankees.
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