Bearing Witness: Memories of Arkansas Slavery

Dallas County

Roosevelt will become a dictator,but I do believe that his being elected a third time will cause some one else to become dictator. My opinion is that he is neither Democrat nor Republican. “Our young people are advancing from a literary point of view, but I claim that they are losing out along moral lines. I don’t believe that we value morals as well as the people did years ago who didn’t know so much. I believe that the whole nation, white and black, is losing moral stamina. They do not think it is bad to kill a man, take another man’s wife or rob a bank, or anything else. They desecrate the churches by carrying anything into the church. There is no sacred place now. Carnivals and everything else are carried to the church. “If Mr. Roosevelt is not reelected again, the country is going to have one of the bloodiest wars it has ever had because we have so many European doctrines coming into the United States. I have been living 78 years, and I never thought that I would live to see the day when the government would reach out and take hold of things like it has done—the WPA, the [illegible], and the [illegible], and other work going on today. We are headed for communism and we are going to get in a bloody war. There are hundreds of men going ’round who believe in communism but who don’t want it to be known now.” Dallas County Badgett, Joseph Samuel Age: 72 1221 Wright Avenue Little Rock, Arkansas Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor [M:8: pt. 1: 78–83] “My mother had Indian in her. She would fight. She was the pet of the people. When she was out, the pateroles would whip her because she didn’t have a pass. She has showed me scars that were on her even till the day that she died. She was whipped because she was out without a pass. She could have had a pass any time for the asking, but she was too proud to ask. She never wanted to do things by permission. Birth “I was born in 1864. I was born right here in Dallas County. Some of the 90 Lankfordtext:Lankford / Final Pages 7/14/09 10:06 AM Page 90 most prominent people in this state came from there.I was born on Thursday, in the morning at three o’clock, May the twelfth. My mother has told me that so often, I have it memorized. Persistence of Slave Customs “While I was a slave and was born close to the end of the Civil War, I remember seeing many of the soldiers down here. I remember much of the treatment given to the slaves. I used to say ‘master’ myself in my day. We had to do that till after ’69 or ’70.I remember the time when I couldn’t go nowhere without asking the‘white folks.’I wasn’t a slave then but I couldn’t go off without asking the white people. I didn’t know no better. “I have known the time in the southern part of this state when if you wanted to give an entertainment you would have to ask the white folks.Didn’t know no better. For years and years, most of the niggers just stayed with the white folks. Didn’t want to leave them. Just took what they give ’em and didn’t ask for nothing different. “If I had known forty years ago what I know now! First Negro Doctor in Tulip, Arkansas “The first Negro doctor we ever seen come from Little Rock down to Tulip, Arkansas. We were all excited. There were plenty of people who didn’t have a doctor living with twenty miles of them. When I was fourteen years old, I was secretary of a conference. Schooling “What little I know, an old white woman taught me. I started to school under this old woman because there weren’t any colored teachers. There wasn’t any school at Tulip where I lived. This old lady just wanted to help. I went to her about seven years. She taught us a little every year—especially in the summer time. She was high class—a high class Christian woman— belonged to the Presbyterian church. Her name was Mrs. Gentry Wiley. “I went to school to Scipio Jones once. Then they opened a public...