'. Dem people would be in de fiel',
an' must get home 'fo dark an' shet de door. Dey wo' three cornered
white hats with de eyes way up high. Dey skeered de breeches off'n me.
First ones I got tangled up wid was right down here by de cemetery. Dey
just wanted to scare you. Night riders was de same thing. I was one of
de fellers what broke 'em up.

"Old man Toleson was de head leader of de Negroes. Tryin' to get Negroes
to go 'gainst our white people. I spec' he was a two faced Yankee or
carpetbagger.

"We had clubs all 'round West Point. Cap'in Shattuck out about Palo Alto
said to us niggers one day, 'Stop your foolishness--go live among your
white folks an' behave. Have sense an' be good citizens.' His advice was
good an' we soon broke up our clubs.

"I ain't been to no school 'cept Sunday School since Surrender. A good
white man I worked with taught me 'nough to spell 'comprestibility' and
'compastibility.' I had good 'membrance an' I could have learned what
white folks taught me, an' dey sees dey manners in me.

"I mar'ied when I was turnin' 19, an' my wife, 15. I mar'ied at big
Methodist Chu'ch in Needmore. Same old chu'ch is dere now. I hope build
it in 1865. Aunt Emaline Robertson an' Vincent Petty an' Van McCanley
started a school in de northeast part of town two years afte' de War.

"Emaline was Mr. Ben Robertson's cook, an' her darter, Callie, was his
housekeeper, an' George an' Walter was mechanics. George became a school
teacher.

"Abraham Lincoln worked by 'pinions of de Bible. He got his meanin's
from de Bible. 'Every man should live under his own vine and fig tree.'
Dis was Abraham's commandments. Dis is where Lincoln started, 'no one
should work for another.'

"Jefferson Davis wanted po' man to work for rich man. He was wrong in
one 'pinion, an' right in t'other. He tried to take care of his Nation.
In one instance, Lincoln was destroying us.

"I j'ined the church to do better an' to be with Christians an' serve
Christ. Dis I learned by 'sociation an' harmonious livin' with black an'
white, old an' young, an' to give justice to all.

"Be fust work I did after de War was for Mr. Bob McDaniel who lived near
Waverly on de Tombigbee River. Yes ma'am, I knowed de Lees, an' de
Joiners, but on de river den an' long afte', an' worked for 'em lots in
Clay County."

Anna Baker, Ex-slave, Monroe County
FEC
Mrs. Richard Kolb
Rewrite, Pauline Loveless
Edited, Clara E. Stokes

ANNA BAKER
Aberdeen