Alabama ~ .. ~:.	39


BINEY BONNER, EX-SLAVE
~
~	“Hear dat whistle?“ The speaker was Siney Bonner, an ex-

slave, now living in the Norwood section of Birmingham. She had stopped for a “confab“ where a group oΑ other elderly Negroes of the neighborhood. had gathered. “De whistles on dem Big Jacke what

pull dese hlghsteppin‘ l.a. trains1mind me of dem steamboats what used. to pull up at de landin‘ at oie Plokensville on de Tombigbee River.

	u t Cose dar ~ n‘ t rio railroads dem days ans de jt way

folks had trabbelin‘ about was de steamboat which passed most every week, and de stage coach which passed twice a.week.

	“Lawsy, man, dem was de days, and many de time atter my daddy, whose name was Green Bonner, heard dat steamboat blow below Piokens— ville he would hitch up de mules to de waggin‘and folier Massa John on ho ssback down to de landin ‚ to fetch back de supply of sugar and coffee and. plow-tools needed on de plantation. Dey would take me ‘long to hold de mules and watch de waggin and it was a reglar picnic to me to see de big shiney boat and. watch de goin‘s on.

	AMassa John Bonner sho‘ did ‘pend on my daddy. De massa paid a thousand green-back dollars for him down to Mobile. ‘Nuf greenbacks to wrap him up in, he said, so he named him Green Bonner.

	“Yes suh, we was all Baptis‘ - de deep water kind, and every Sunday dey used to pile us into de waggins and pull out bright and early for Big Creek Church on the Carroilton road. Everybody fetched a big basket of grub and, sakes alive~1aech another dinner you never See, all spread out on de grassy grove by de oie graveyard. Mos‘ all
w.	r. Jordan