#712 65
	Interviewer - - ---- - -	- Mrs .~ ~rnice Bowden
	Person interviewed	               3\ilia Grace
		819 N. Spraee Street) Pine Bluff, Arkansas






	“I was seventy.4our this last past fourth of J‘u1y~ I was born in Texas, My mother was sent to Texas to keep ftom bein‘ freed.

	~	“Ad March and Spru.ce MeCrary is the onliest white folks I rexaember bein‘ with, I don‘t know whether they was our owners or not,

	“My father was sent to North Carolina and I never did see hin no mores

	“After freedom they brought us back here from Texas and we worked on the MeCrary plantation.

	“In slavery days marna said she and my father stayed in the woods most of the time~ That‘s when they was whippin‘ ‘en.

	“My mother come fron Richmond, Virginia. Petersburg was her town. She belonged to the V~e1lses over them,

	“After her iriaster ~ot his le~ broke, the rest was so mean to her she run off a couple times, so they sold her. B~t her up on the tradin‘ block..— like soin‘ to m~ike a speech. Stripped ‘en naked. The man bid ‘en off like you‘d bid off oxen,

	“Mama told me her misais, after her husband died, é~ot so r~ean to her she run off till her old raissis sold her. They weighed ‘ein and stripped ‘em naked to see if they ~as anything wroxi~ with ‘em and how they was built and then bid ‘era off.

	“Mama said she never would a been in Arkansas if they hadn‘t been so mean to her. They were too compulsive on ‘em~—~you know, hard taskmasters,