at killed the Republican party. We ain't had but
three real Republican presidents since the war--Garfield, McKinley and
Teddy Roosevelt. They killed Garfield, and they killed McKinley, and
they tried to kill Teddy Roosevelt. Well, they asked Grant if they could
make state constitutions. Grant said, 'Yes, if they didn't conflict with
the national constitution.' But they did conflict and Grant didn't do
nothin' about it."

Schooling, Antebellum and Postbellum

"Northern teachers were sent down here after the war and they charged a
dollar a month until the State set up schools. Some of the Niggers
learned enough in the six months school to teach, and some white persons
taught.

"In slave times, they didn't have any schools for Niggers. Niggers
better not be caught with a book. If he were caught with a book they
beat him to death nearly. Niggers used to get hold of this Webster's
Blue Back Book and the white folks would catch them and take them away.
They didn't allow no free Niggers to go to school either in slave times."

Share Cropping

"I used to see Niggers in Georgia share cropping. Nigger work all the
year. Christmas eve night they would be going back to the plantation
singing--done lost everything--sitting on the wagon singing:

'Sho' pity Lawd forgive
That ar' pentant rebel live.'

"Then they would have to get clothes and food against the next year's
crop. Then you'd see 'em on the wagon again driving back to the
plantation loaded down with provisions, singing:

'Lawd revive us agin
All our increase comes from thee.'

"I used to study how them people could live. They didn't give but ten
dollars a month for common labor. They didn't give anything to the share
cropper. They took all of it. They said he spent it, borrowed it, and on
like that."

Didn't Want To Be Free

"Some that didn't know any better didn't want to be free. Especially
them that had hard taskmasters. When the Nigger was turned loose sho
nuff, some of them didn't have a good shirt to their back. The master
hated to lose them so bad, he wouldn't give them anything.

"But for twenty-five years after slave times, there ain't no race of
people ever traveled as fast as the Nigger did. But when the young ones
came up, they are the ones what killed the thing. An old white man said:
'We thought if you folks kept it up we or you one would have to leave
this country. But when the young ones came on, and began begrudging one
anot