"I've belonged to the Holiness Church six years. (They call us
'Holiness,' but the real name is Pentecostal.)

"Yes suh, there's a heap of difference in folks now 'an when I was a
girl--especially among the young people. I think no woman, white or
black, has got any business wastin' time around the votin' polls. Their
place is at home raisin' a family. I hear em sometimes slinging out
their 'damns' and it sure don't soun' right to me.

"Good day, mistah. I wish you well--but the gov'ment ain't gonna do
nothing. It never has yit."




Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: T.W. Cotton, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 80
[May 11 1938]


"I was born close to Indian Bay. I belong to Ed Cotton. Mother was sold
from John Mason between Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. Three sisters
was sold and they give grandma and my sister in the trade. Grandma was
so old she wasn't much account fer field work. Mother left a son she
never seen ag'in. Aunt Adeline's boy come too. They was put on a block
but I can't recollect where it was. If mother had a husband she never
said nothing 'bout him. He muster been dead.

"Now my papa come from La Grange, Tennessee. Master Bowers sold him to