On the first day of
January, they would whip men and boys that didn't have a job. They kept
the Negroes from voting. They would whip them. They put up notices, 'No
niggers to come out to the polls tomorrow.' They would run them off of
government land which they had homesteaded. Sometimes they would just
persuade them not to vote. A Negro like my father, they would say to
him, 'Now, Brown, you are too good to get messed up. Them other niggers
'round here ain't worth nothing, but you are, and we don't want to see
you get hurt. So you stay 'way from the polls tomorrow.' And tomorrow,
my father would stay away, under the circumstances. They had to depend
on the white people for counsel. They didn't know what to do themselves.
The other niggers they would threaten them and tell them if they came
out they would kill them.
"Right after the war, we farmed on shares. When we made our last
share-crop, father farmed on Senator Bilbo's mother's farm on the State
line. I nursed Senator Bilbo when he was a baby. Theoda Bilbo. He is the
one who says Negroes should be sent to Africa. Then there wouldn't be
nobody here to raise people like him. He fell into the mill pond one day
and I pulled him out and kept him from drowning. If it weren't for that,
he wouldn't be here to say, 'Send all the Negroes to Africa.' If I'd see
him right now, he'd give me ten dollars.
Pages:
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277