"The present generation is going back'ards. For awhile it looked like
they was rising--I'm speaking morally. They going back down in a hurry.
Drinking and doing all kinds of devilment. The race is going back'ard
now. Seems like everybody could see that when whiskey come back in.

"I got high blood pressure. I do a little work. I watch on Sunday at the
mills. I don't get no help from the Gover'ment."




Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Benjamin Diggs
420 N. Cypress, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79


"I was born in 1859 in North Carolina. Oh, sure, I remember when the
Yankees come through. They said they done right smart of damage. I
remember goin' by a place where they had burned it down. They didn't do
nothin' to my white folks 'cept took the stock.

"The Lyles was my white folks. They called her Polly Lyles. Oh, they was
good to us. My mother and her sister and another colored woman and we
children all belonged to one set of people--Miss Polly Lyles; and my
father belonged to the Diggs.

"After freedom we moved off but they was good to us just the same, and
we was glad to pay 'em a visit and they was glad to have us.