I've seen the time you could go to a white
man and he would help you but these young white folks, they turn from
you."
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: J.N. Brown
3500 West 7th Ave.
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 79
Occupation: Sells peanuts from wagon
"Yes'm, I was livin' in slavery times--musta been--I was born in 1858,
near Natchez, Mississippi--in town.
"Old Daniel Virdin was my first master. I can halfway remember him. Oh
Lord, I remember that shootin'. Used to clap my hands--called it
foolishness. We kids didn't know no better.
"I was in Camden, Arkansas when we was freed. Colored folks in them days
was sold and run. My father was in Camden when we got free--he was sold.
My mother was sold too.
"I heared em say they had a good master and mistis. Man what bought em
was named Brown. They runned us to Texas durin' the war and then come
back here to Camden.
"I never went to school. I was the oldest chile my father had out a
sixteen and I had to work. We had a kinda hard time. I stayed in Camden
till I was eighteen and then I runned off from my folks and went to
Texas. Times was so tight in Arkansas, and a cattleman come there and
said they'd give me twenty-five dollars a month in Texas. I thought that
would beat just something to eat. I been workin' for the white folks and
just gettin' a little grub and not makin' any money.
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