715 Ott St., Franklin, Ind.


Frank Cooper, an aged colored man of Franklin, relates some very
interesting conditions that existed in slavery days as handed down to
him by his mother.

Mandy Cooper, the mother of Frank Cooper, was 115 years old when she
died; she was owned by three different families: the Good's, the
Burton's, and the Cooper's, all of Lincoln Co. Kentucky.

"Well, Ah reckon Ah am one of the oldest colored men hereabouts,"
confessed aged Frank Cooper. "What did you all want to see me about?" My
mission being stated, he related one of the strangest categories
alluding to his mother's slave life that I have ever heard.

"One day while mah mammy was washing her back my sistah noticed ugly
disfiguring scars on it. Inquiring about them, we found, much to our
amazement, that they were mammy's relics of the now gone, if not
forgotten, slave days.

"This was her first reference to her "misery days" that she had evah
made in my presence. Of course we all thought she was tellin' us a big
story and we made fun of her. With eyes flashin', she stopped bathing,
dried her back and reached for the smelly ole black whip that hung
behind the kitchen door. Biddin' us to strip down to our waists, my
little mammy with the boney bent-ovah back, struck each of us as hard as
evah she could with that black-snake whip, each stroke of the whip drew
blood from our backs. "Now", she said to us, "you have a taste of
slavery days." With three of her children now having tasted of some of