many poorly prepared persons entered the school room as tutor.

William Williams, Willis' father, found work at the old Florida Central
and Peninsular Railroad yards and worked for many years there. He sent
his children to school and Willis advanced rapidly.

During slavery Negroes attended church, sat in the balcony, and very
often log churches were built for them. Meetings were held under "bush
harbors." After the war frame and log churches served them as places of
worship. These buildings were erected by whites who came into the
southland to help the ex-slave. Negro men who claimed God had called
them to preach served as ministers of most of the Negro churches but
often white preachers visited them and instructed them concerning the
Bible and what God wanted them to do. Services were conducted three
times a day on Sunday, morning at eleven, in afternoon about three and
at night at eight o'clock.

The manner of worship was very much in keeping with present day modes.
Preachers appealed to the emotions of the 'flock' and the congregation
responded with "amens," "halleluia," clapping of hands, shouting and
screaming. Willis remarked to one white man during his early life, that
he wondered why the people yelled so loudly and the man replied that in
fifty years hence the Negroes would be educated, know better and would
not do that. He further replied that fifty years ago the white people
screamed and shouted that way. Willis wonders now when he sees both
white and colored people responding to preaching in much the same way as
in his early life if education has made much difference in many cases.

Much superstition and ignorance existed among the Negroes during slavery
and early reconstruction. Some wore bags of sulphur saying they would
keep away disease. Some wore bags of salt and charcoal believing that
evil spirits would be kept away from them. Others wore a silver coin in
their shoes and some made holes in the coin, threaded a string through
it, attached it to the ankle so that no one could conjure them. Some who
thought an enemy might sprinkle "goofer dust" around their door steps
swept very clean around the door step in the evening and allowed no one
to come in afterwards.

The Negro men who spent much time around the "grannies" during slavery
learned much about herbs and roots and how they were used to cure all
manner of ills, the doctor gave practically the same kind of medicine
for most ailments. The white do