Got

"They said that the President and the Governor was going to give land to
the niggers--going to take it off the owners that they worked for. But
they never did get it."

Ku Klux Klan

"I heered talk of the Ku Klux. I can remember once when they come
through there (Enfield). That was eight or ten years after the War. They
would ketch some of the niggers and whip them. The young niggers got
their guns and rigged up a plan to kill them and laid out in a place for
them, but they got wind of it and stopped coming."

Mother's Occupation

"My mother was a great weaver. She would weave cloth for the hands on
the place. Some days she would work around the house and some other days
she'd go out and weave. When they wasn't any weaving or spinning to be
done, she'd go out in the field. The weaving and the spinning was right
in the white folks' house."

Own Occupation

"I used to be a preacher. Don't do much of nothin' now. Ain't able. Get
a little help from the Welfare--a little groceries sometimes. Don't get
any pension. You see, I can't do much on account of my blindness."

Opinions of Young People

"I can't tell you what I think of the young people. Times have got to be
so fast. It is just terrible to think how this life is. So much change
from forty to fifty years ago. Just as much difference on both sides,
white and colored, as there is between chalk and cheese."

Praying Under Pots

"When they'd go to have a church meeting, they turn up the pot so that
the noise wouldn't come out. They could go to the white folks' church.
But the spirit would come on them sometimes to have service themselves.
Then they'd go down to the house at night and turn up those big old iron
pots and master never would hear. They wouldn't put the washpot flat on
the ground. They'd put sticks under it and raise it up about a foot from
the ground. If they'd put it flat on the ground the ground would carry
the sound."

Voting

"There weren't no voting at all in slavery times (in his locality--ed.)
that is, far as the niggers were concerned. But after everybody was free
you could vote up until they stopped the people from voting. They kept a
Republican ticket in then. There wasn't no Democrat. None like they is
now. I don't know how this thing got mixed up like it is now.

"I remember once in North Carolina a man named Bryant got away with a
lot of votes in the boxes. He was seen to go out with two boxes under
his arms. An