downs, I stuck to the company just the same
until they retired me in 1935 because of old age. The retirement board
wanted to know when I asked for a pension, why did I think I was
entitled to a pension? I told them because I had been injured through
service with the company and had honorably finished so long a period of
service. It is now admitted that I am eligible to a railroad pension but
there seems to still be a delay in paying it for some reason or other.

Support Now

"I get a little assistance from the Welfare, and I get some commodities.
If it wasn't for that, I would be broke up."

[HW: Brooks-Baxter War was about 1872-74.]

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Malindy Robinson
8th Street, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 61

"I was born in Wilkerson County, Mississippi. My ma never was sold, She
said she was eleven years old when peace was declared. Master Sims was
grandma's owner. Grandpa was never sold. He was born in Mississippi. He
was a mulatto man. He was a man worked about the house and grandma was a
field woman. She said she never was whooped but worked mighty hard. They
was good to grandma. She lived in the quarters. My parents b'long to the
same owner. But far as I ever knowed they married long after freedom.
They was raised close to Woodville, Mississippi."

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person interviewed: Tom Robinson
Aged: 88
Home: Lives with his son on outskirts of Hot Springs

As I entered Goldstein Grade school for colored I passed an old
fellow sitting on the sidewalk. There was somthing of that venerable,
dignified, I've-been-a-slave look about him, so much of it that I almost
stopped to question him. Inside I entered a classroom, where a young
woman was in conference with a couple of sheepish youngsters who had
been kept in after school.

Did she know the whereabouts of any ex-slaves? She beamed. Only the
other day an old man had appeared on the school grounds. She appealed to
her charges. Didn't they remember that she had told them about him and
about what slavery had meant. Sheepish looks were gone. They were agog
with interest. Yes 'um, they remembered. But none of the three knew his
name or where to find him.

Another teacher entered the room. No, she couldn't remember the name.
But the old man often came up to watch the children at play. He said it
made him happy to see them getting opportunities he never could have
had. Wa