rants. They say it was the heat caused me to go blind. I
cooked up till 1927. The last folks I cooked for was on a boat for
Heckles and Wade Sales up at Augusta, Arkansas. I done carpentry work
some when I was off of a cooking job. I never liked farmin' much. I have
done a little of that along between times too. My main job is cooking.

"I voted along when I could see. I ain't voted lately. I sho lacks this
President.

"I had a house and lot--this one, but I couldn't pay taxes. We still
living in it. We got a garden. No hog, no cow. We made our home when I
cooked and my wife washed and ironed.

"I think this new generation of colored folks is awful. They can get
work if they would do it. Times is gettin' worse. They work some if the
price suit 'em, if it don't, they steal. They spend 'bout all they make
for shows, whiskey and I don't know whut all.

"The Social Welfare gives me $8 a month. My wife does all the washing
and ironin' she can get. We are doing very well.

"I don't understand much 'bout votin' and picking out canidates. It
don't hurt if the women want to vote.

"Only songs I ever heard was corn songs. I don't remember none. They
make 'em up out in the fields. Some folks good at making up songs. One I
used to hear a whole heap was 'It goiner be a hot time in the old time
tonite.' Another one 'If you liker me liker I liker you. We both liker
the same.' I don't remember no more them songs. I used to hear 'em a
whole lots. Yes out in the fields."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Pages 58 to 62 have been withdrawn after numbering.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: George Govan
Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 52

"George Govan is my name, and I was born in Conway County somewheres in
December 1886--I guess it was about de seventeenth of December. We lived
there till 1911, when I come to Pope County. Both my parents was slaves
on de plantation of a Mr. Govan near Charleston, South Carolina. Dat's
where we got our name. Folks come to Arkansas after dey was freed. No
sir, I ain't edicated--never had de chance. Parents been dead a good
many years.

"Yas suh, my folks used to talk a heap and tell me lots of tales of
slavery days, and how de patrollers used to whip em when dey wanted to
go some place and didn't have de demit to go. Yas suh, dey had to have a
demit to go any place outside work hours. Dey whipped my mother and
father both sometimes, and dey sure was afra