on, some of them,
do mighty bad. Some of them is all right. Some of them don't do much
and don't save nothing. I owns this house and did own another one what
burned down. A lamp exploded and caught it while I was going off up the
road but I never looked back or I would have seen it. It seem lack now
it takes more money to do than it ever did in times before. Seems like
money is the only thing to have and get. Folks gone scottch crazy over
money, money! Both is changing. The white folks, I'm speaking bout, the
white folks has changed and course the colored folks keeping up wid
them. The old white and colored neither can't keep up wid the fast
times. I say it's the folks that made this depression and it's the folks
keeping the depression. The little fellow is squeezed clear out. It out
to be stopped. Folks ain't happy like they used to be. Course they sung
songs all the time. Religious choruses mostly.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Amanda Rosa
817 Schiller Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 82

"I was nine years old in the time of the surrender. I know I was here
in that time. I don't know nothin' 'bout their carryin'-on. I know they
whipped them with hobble rods. You don't know what hobble rods is!!!
Ain't you seen these here long thin hick'ry shoots? They called hobble
rods. I don't know why they called 'em hobble rods. I know they made you
hobble. They'd put 'em in the fire and roast 'em and twist 'em. I have
seen 'em whip them till the blood run down their backs. I've seen 'em
tie the women up, strip 'em naked to their waist and whip 'am till the
blood run down their backs. They had a nigger whipper, too.

"I was born in Salem, Alabama. I came up here about twenty-five years
ago.

"Isaac Adair was the name of the old man who owned me. He owned my
mother and father too, Hester and Scip. Their last name was Adair, the
same as their master's.

"I don't remember the names of my grandfather and grandmother, 'cause we
was crossed up, you see, One of my grandmothers was named Crecie and the
other was named Lydia. I don't remember my grandfather's name. I spect
I used to call 'im master. I used to remember them but I don't no more.
Nobody can't worry me 'bout them old folks now. They ast me all them
questions at the Welfare. They want to know your gran'pa and your
gran'ma. Who were they, what did they do, where did they live, where are
they now? I don't know what they di