oes of the south is an
inheritance and not "just a gift from On High," Knoxville, Tennessee's
aged Negro Poet,--born Joseph Leonidas Star,--but prominently known in
the community as "Lee" Star, Poet, Politician and Lodge Man,--thinks
that Georgia's poetic genius Paul Lawrence Dunbar, "maybe took his
writin' spells" from him.

"My grandfather and Paul Lawrence Dunbar's grandfather was cousins. He
were a much younger man than I am, for I was eighty-one years old the
twenty-sixth of December, 1937. So I reckon I give it down to my
kin-man. But it seem to me, that Poets is just born thataway. Po'try
is nothin' but Truth anyway, and it's Truth was sets us free. And that
makes me a free-born citizen bothways and every ways. I were born
free. I were always happy-natured and I expect to die thataway. One of
my poems is named, 'Be Satisfied!' and I say in it that if a man's got
somethin' to eat, and teeth to bite, he should be satisfied. You cant
take your goods with you. Old man Rockefeller, when he died here
awhile back, went away from here 'thout his hat and shoes. That's the
way its goin' to be with all us, no matter what our color is."

"The people 'round here calls me "Lee" Star, and I want to tell you,
Lee Star is a free-born man. But of course, things bein' as they were,
both my mother and father were slaves. That is for a few years. They
lived in Greenville, Tennessee. My mother, Maria Guess, was free'd
before the emancipation, by the good words of her young white
mistress, who told 'me [TR: 'em] all when she was about to die, she
wanted 'em to set Maria free, 'cause she didn't want her little
playmate to be nobodys else's slave. They was playmates you see. My
mother was eleven years old when she was freed."

"When she was about fourteen and my father Henry Dunbar wanted to
marry he had to first buy his freedom. In them times a slave couldn't
marry a free'd person. So he bought his freedom from his Marster Lloyd
Bullen, and a good friend of Andrew Johnson, the presi-dent. My father
an' him was friends too. So he bought his freedom, for just a little
of somethin' I disremember what, 'cause they didn't aim to make him
buy his freedom high. He made good money though. He was a carpenter,
blacksmith, shoe maker and knowed a lot more trades. His Master was
broadhearted, and good to his slaves, and he let 'em work at anything
they want to, when they was done their part of white folks
chore-work."

"Both my father and moth