For hundreds of years, there has
been money put under the ground.
"I heard my mother talk about their dances and frolics then. I never
heard her speak of anything else. They didn't have much freedom. They
couldn't go and come as they pleased. You had to have a script to go and
come. Niggers ain't free now. You can't do anything; you got nothin'.
This whole town belongs to white folks, and you can't do nothin'. If
nigger get to have anything, white folks will take it.
"We raised our own food. We made our own flour. We wove our own cloth.
We made our clothes. We made our meal. We made our sorghum cane
molasses. Some of them made their shoes, made their own medicine, and
went around and doctored on one another. They were more healthy then
than they are now. This generation don't live hardly to get forty years
old. They don't live long now.
"I came to Arkansas about thirty-five years ago. I got right into
ditches. The first thing I did was farm. I farmed about ten years. I
made about ten crops. Mississippi gave you more for your crops than
Arkansas."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Matilda Bass
1100 Palm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
"Yes ma'am, I was eight years old when the Old War ceasted.
"Honey, I've lived here twenty years and I don't know what this street
is.
"I was born in Greenville, Mississippi.
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