th or twentieth
century Negroes is something fierce I'm telling you.

Vocational Experiences

"I am a carpenter. I wish I wasn't. The depression has made it so that
the Negroes get very little to do. What they have they give to their
own people. They don't have much for nobody. Even if the nigger gets
something, he gets very little out of it. But the main trouble is there
isn't anything to do.

"I have been a carpenter for fifty-four years. I have been here
fifty-one years. I have never had no trouble earning a living till now.
I can't do it now. The biggest obstacle of the success of the Negro
carpenter is that Negroes don't have the money to build with. They must
get the money from the white man. The white man, on the other hand, if
he lets out the money for the building, has the say-so on who will
do it, and he naturally picks out another white man. That keeps the
majority of Negroes out of work as far as carpentry is concerned. It
does in a time like this. When times is better, the white man does not
need to be so tight, and he can divide up."

Interviewer: Pernella Anderson, colored
Caroline Stout

EX-SLAVES

I was born in Alabama in slavery time. I was sold from my mother after I
was five years old and never did see her again. Was sold to a family by
the name of Mr. Games. There were six of them in family and I was the
seventh. They were very nice to me until I was about 10 years of age.
I would attend to the little kids. They were all boys. Had to sleep on
straw beds and been cooking for myself ever since I was 8 years old.
When about ten they started putting hard work on me and had to pick
cotton and do the work around the house. Was a slave for about 15 years.
After I was freed I moved to Union County and been here ever since.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Felix Street
822 Schiller Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 74

I was born in Dickson County, Tennessee, fifty miles north of Nashville,
in 1864. It was on December twenty-eighth. My father told me when he was
living how old I was. He told me all the way along, and I remember it.

"Nannie, Jeff, Hardy, John Mack, and Felix (that's me) are my father's
children by his first wife. Lena, Martha, Esther are his children by his
second wife. He had five children by my mother, and four of them lived
to be grown, and one died in infancy. My mother was his first wife. Her
name was Mary Street. Her