n once in Little Rock under the administration of
Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge,
Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of
Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of
public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern
Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion
H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all
aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County, S.
H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about five feet
high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of Desha County.
Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro used to hold good offices
in this state.

I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter caused it.
Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern part of the
state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with the North in the
war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the North somewheres. When
Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom the old ex-slaveholders
supported because he was a Southerner and sided with Baxter against
Brooks, it put the present Democratic party in power, and they passed
the Grandfather law barring Negroes from voting.

Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted out. Ballot
boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally, Negroes got
discouraged and quit trying to vote."

[Footnote A: [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of
La. Held office 43 days.]]

[Footnote B: [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of
Jefferson Davis.]]

[Footnote C: [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of
public instruction in 1873--served until the end of 1875.]]

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher),
Hazen, Ark.
Age: 77

"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and
he couldn't talk plain.

"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a white
man. He was a Scotchman.

"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left
Virginia.

"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em was
married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly
Springs, Mississippi in 1867.

"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at
Holly Springs.

"I had two