med Alec Young.
My mother's father was named Eliza Wright.

"My mother's people were the Hawkins, and my father's were the Yanceys.

"My father and mother were farmers, and ran whiskey stills. There wasn't
any revenue on whiskey then. The first revenue ever paid on whiskey was
ten cents. The reason I remember that so well was that a fellow named
John Hayman ran a still after the revenue was put on the stuff. Finally
they caught him. They fined him.

"My folks farmed right after freedom and they farmed in slavery time.
They didn't raise no cotton. They raised corn and wheat and such as that
in Alabama. Alabama is good for cotton, corn, wheat, tobacco, or
anything you want to grow. It is the greatest fruit country in the
world.

"Right after freedom, my folks continued to farm till they all played
out."

[HW: Insert on P. 9]

"I came out here after I got grown. I just took a notion to go somewhere
else. I have been in Arkansas forty-eight years. I first lived in
Forrest City. Stayed there six years and did carpenter work. I have been
a carpenter all my life--ever since I was about sixteen years old. I
went to Barton, Arkansas and stayed there two years and then came here.
I have supported myself by carpenter work ever since I came here. I
helped build the Frisco Road from Potts Camp to the Alabama River. That
is the other side of Jefferson County in Alabama.

"I haven't asked for the old folks pension--can't get no one to believe
that I am old enough for one thing. Can't get it nohow. It is for
destitute people. I can't get under the security because they say I am
too old for that. I'm too much of a worker to get old age assistance and
too old to be allowed to put up tax to become eligible for old age
pension.

"I never went to school. I just got an old blue back speller and taught
myself how to read and write with what I picked up here and there from
people I watched. That's one way a man never fails to learn--watching
people. That's the only way our forefathers had to learn. I learned
arithmetic the same way. I never considered I was much at figuring but I
took a contract from a man who had all kinds of education and that man
said I could do arithmetic better than he could.

"I belong to the A. M. E. Church. I have been a member of it for
forty-one years.

"I have three boys living and one stepdaughter. But she feels like she
is my own. I don't make any difference. I never have whipped my
children. I had o