.

"Dat's de way it happen ever' time a Nigger tried to git too uppity. Dat
night after de breakin' up o' dat' tainment, de Kloo Kluxes rid[FN:
rode] th'ough de lan'. I hear'd dey grabbed ever' Nigger what walked
down dat aisle, but I aint hear'd yet what dey done wid 'em.

"Dat same thing happened ever' time a Nigger tried to act lak he was
white.

"A heap o' Niggers voted for a little while. Dey was a black man what
had office. He was named Lynch. He cut a big figger up in Washington. Us
had a sheriff named Winston. He was a ginger cake Nigger an' pow'ful
mean when he got riled. Sheriff Winston was a slave an', if my mem'ry
aint failed me, so was Lynch.

"My granny tol' me 'bout a slave uprisin' what took place when I was a
little boy. None o' de marster's Niggers' ud have nothin' to do wid it.
A Nigger tried to git 'em to kill dey white folks an' take dey lan'. But
what us want to kill old Marster an' take de lan' when dey was de bes'
frien's us had? Dey caught de Nigger an' hung 'im to a limb.

"Plenty folks b'lieved in charms, but I didn' take no stock in such
truck. But I don't lak for de moon to shine on me when I's a-sleepin'.

"De young Niggers is headed straight for hell. All dey think' bout is
drinkin' hard likker, goin' to dance halls, an' a-ridin' in a old rattle
trap car. It beats all how dey brags an' wastes things. Dey aint one
whit happier dan folks was in my day. I was as proud to git a apple as
dey is to git a pint o' likker. Course, schools he'p some, but looks lak
all mos' o' de young'n's is studyin' 'bout is how to git out o' hones'
labor.

"I'se seen a heap o' fools what thinks 'cause they is wise in books,
they is wise in all things.

"Mos' all my white folks is gone, now. Marse Randolph Shields is a
doctor 'way off in China. I wish I could git word to' im, 'cause I know
he'd look after me if he knowed I was on charity. I prays de Lawd to see
'em all when I die."

Gabe Emanuel, Ex-slave, Claiborne County
FEC
Esther de Sola
Rewrite, Pauline Loveless
Edited, Clara E. Stokes

GABE EMANUEL
Port Gibson, Mississippi

Gabe Emanuel is the blackest of Negroes. He is stooped and wobbly from
his eighty-five years and weighs about one hundred and thirty-five
pounds. His speech is somewhat hindered by an unbelievable amount of
tobacco rolled to one side of his mouth. He lives in the Negro quarters
of Port Gibson. Like most ex-slaves he has the courtesy and the
gentleness of a souther