, the Ku Klux was the law like night
watchman. When I was a boy there was a lot of stealing and bushwhacking.
Folks meet you out and kill you, rob you, whoop you. A few of the black
men wouldn't work and wanted to steal. That Ku Klux was the law watching
around. Folks was scared of em. I did see them. I would run hide.

"I farmed up till 1929. Then I been doing jobs. I worked on relief till
they turned me off, said I was too old to work but they won't give me
the pension. I been trying to figure out what I am to do. Lady, could
you tell me? Work at jobs when I can get them.

"I allus been voting till late years. If they let some folks vote in the
first lection, they would be putting in somebody got no business in the
gover'ment. All the fault I see in white folks running the gover'ment is
we colored folks ain't got work we can do all the time to live on. I
thought all the white folks had jobs what wanted jobs. The conditions is
hard for old men like me. I pay $3 for a house every month. It is a cold
house.

"This present generation is living a fast life. What all don't they do?"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Waters McIntosh
1900 Howard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 76

"I was born July 4, 1862 at 2:08 in the morning at Lynchburg, Sumter
County, South Carolina.

Parents

"My mother was named Lucy Sanders. My father was named Sumter Durant.
Our owner was Dr. J.M. Sanders, the son of Mr. Bartlett Sanders. Sumter
Durant was a white man. My mother was fourteen years old when I was born
I was her second child. Durant was in the Confederate army and was
killed during the War in the same year I was born, and before my birth.

Sold

"When I was a year old, my mother was sold for $1500 in gold, and I was
sold for $500 in gold to William Carter who lived about five miles south
of Cartersville. The payment was made in fine gold. I was sold because
my folk realized that freedom was coming and they wanted to obtain the
cash value of their slaves.

Name

"My name is spelled 'Waters' but it is pronounced 'Waiters.' When I was
born, I was thought to be a very likely child and it was proposed that I
should be a waiter. Therefore I was called Waters (but it was pronounced
Waiters). They did not spell it w-a-i-t-e-r-s, but they pronounced it
that way.

How Freedom Came

"My mother said that they had been waiting a long time to hear what had
become of the War,