was a mulatto man. He was a man worked about the house and grandma was a
field woman. She said she never was whooped but worked mighty hard. They
was good to grandma. She lived in the quarters. My parents b'long to the
same owner. But far as I ever knowed they married long after freedom.
They was raised close to Woodville, Mississippi."




Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person interviewed: Tom Robinson
Aged: 88
Home: Lives with his son on outskirts of Hot Springs


As I entered Goldstein Grade school for colored I passed an old
fellow sitting on the sidewalk. There was somthing of that venerable,
dignified, I've-been-a-slave look about him, so much of it that I almost
stopped to question him. Inside I entered a classroom, where a young
woman was in conference with a couple of sheepish youngsters who had
been kept in after school.

Did she know the whereabouts of any ex-slaves? She beamed. Only the
other day an old man had appeared on the school grounds. She appealed to
her charges. Didn't they remember that she had told them about him and
about what slavery had meant. Sheepish looks were gone. They were agog
with interest. Yes 'um, they remembered. But none of the three knew his
name or where to find him.

Another teacher entered the room. No, she couldn't remember the name.