take anybody whut wanter work. I wish I was able to go. I loves to pick
cotton. She pay em seventy-five cents a hundred. She'll pay em too! I
don't know what they do this winter. Set by the fire I recken. But next
spring she'll let hoe that crop. She took em this past year to hoe out
that very cotton they pickin now. Her husband, he's sick. He keeps their
store up town. She takes a few white hands too if they wanter work. I
don't think the present generation no worse en they ever been. They
drawed up closer together than they used to be. They buys everything now
an they don't raise nuthin. It's the Bible fulfillin. Everything so high
they caint save nuthin!

"I married twice. First time in the church, other time at home. I had
four children. I had two in Detroit. I don't know where my son is. He
may be there yet. My daughter there got fourteen children her own. I
don't know where the others are. Nom [HW: long "o" diacritical] they
don't help me a bit, do well helpin theirselves. I gets the Welfare
sistance and I works my garden back here."




Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Parrish Washington
812 Spruce Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 86


"I was born in 1852--born in Arkansas. Sam Warren was my old master.

"I remember some of the Rebel generals--General Price and General