want in a state of servitude but
little better than slavery. Lincoln done but little for the Negro race
and from living standpoint nothing. White folks are not going to do
nothing for Negroes except keep them down.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, the writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin, did that for
her own good. She had her own interests at heart and I don't like her,
Lincoln, or none of the crowd. The Yankees helped free us, so they say,
but they let us be put back in slavery again.

When I think of slavery it makes me mad. I do not believe in giving you
my story 'cause with all the promises that have been made the Negro is
still in a bad way in the United States, no matter in what part he
lives it's all the same. Now you may be all right; there are a few white
men who are but the pressure is such from your white friends that you
will be compelled to talk against us and give us the cold shoulder when
you are around them, even if your heart is right towards us.

You are going around to get a story of slavery conditions and the
persecusions of Negroes before the civil war and the economic conditions
concerning them since that war. You should have known before this late
day all about that. Are you going to help us? No! you are only helping
yourself. You say that my story may be put into a book, that you are
from the Federal Writer's Project. Well, the Negro will not get anything
out of it, no matter where you are from. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote
Uncle Tom's Cabin. I didn't like her book and I hate her. No matter
where you are from I don't want you to write my story cause the white
folks have been and are now and always will be against the negro.

LE

N. C. District: No. 3 [320016]
Worker: Travis Jordan
Subject: Hecter Hamilton
Ex-slave 90 Years.

[TR: Date Stamp "JUN 30 1937"]

HECTER HAMILTON
EX-SLAVE 90 YEARS

Dey wuz two General Lee's, in de 'Federate War. One los' his fight, but
de other won his.

One of dese Generals wuz a white man dat rode a white hoss, an' de other
wuz a mean fightin' gander dat I named General Lee, though I didn' know
den dat he wuz goin' to live up to his name. But when de time come dat
long neck gander out fit de whole 'Federate army.

My white fo'ks lived in Virginia. Dey wuz Marse Peter an' Mis' Laura
Hamilton. Dey lived on de big Hamilton plantation dat wuz so big dat wid
all de niggers dey had dey couldn' 'ten' half of it. Dis lan'