Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Liney Chambers, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:
[TR: Some word pronunciation was marked in this interview. Letters
surrounded by [] represent long vowels.]
"I was born in Tennessee close to Memphis. I remember seein' the
Yankees. I was most too little to be very scared of them. They had their
guns but they didn't bother us. I was born a slave. My mother cooked for
Jane and Silas Wory. My mother's name was Caroline. My father's name was
John. An old bachelor named Jim Bledsoe owned him. When the war was over
I don't remember what happened. My mother moved away. She and my father
didn't live together. I had one brother, Proctor. I expect he is dead.
He lived in California last I heard of him.
"They just expected freedom all I ever heard. I know they didn't expect
the white folks to give them no land cause the man what owned the land
bought it hisself foe he bought the hands whut he put on it. They
thought they was ruined bad enouf when the hands left them. They kept
the land and that is about all there was left. Whut the Yankees didn't
take they wasted and set fire to it. They set fire to the rail fences so
the stock would get out all they didn't kill and take off. Both sides
was mean. But it seemed like cause they was fightin' down here on the
Souths ground it was the wurst here. Now that's just the way I sees it.
They done one more thing too. They put any colored man in the front
where he would get killed first and they stayed sorter behind in the
back lines. When they come along they try to get the colored men to go
with them and that's the way they got treated. I didn't know where
anybody was made to stay on after the war. They was lucky if they had a
place to stay at. There wasn't anything to do with if they stayed. Times
was awful unsettled for a long time. People whut went to the cities
died. I don't know they caught diseases and changing the ways of eatin'
and livin' I guess whut done it. They died mighty fast for awhile. I
knowed some of them and I heard 'em talking.
"That period after the war was a hard time. It sho was harder than the
depression. It lasted a long time. Folks got a lots now besides what
they put up with then. Seemed like they thought if they be free they
never have no work to do and jess have plenty to eat and wear. They
found it different and when it was cold they had no wood like they been
used to. I don't believe in the colored race being slaves cause of the
color but the war didn't make times much better for a long time. Some of
them had a worse time. So many soon got sick and died. They died of
Consumption and fevers and nearly froze. Some near 'bout starved. The
colored folks just scattered 'bout huntin' work after the war.
"I heard of the Ku Klux but I never seen one.
"I never voted. I don't believe in it.
"I never heard of any uprisings. I don't know nobody in that rebellion
(Nat Turner).
"I used to sing to my children and in the field.
"I lived on the farm till I come to my daughters to live. I like it
better then in town. We homesteaded a place at Grunfield (Zint) and my
sister bought it. We barely made a living and never had money to lay up.
"I don't know what they'll (young generation) do. Things going so fast.
I'm glad I lived when I did. I think it's been the best time for p[o]r
folks. Some now got too much and some not got nothin'. That what I
believe make times seem so hard."