Interviewer	~• ~ Bowden
	~	~ ~ _U— ~ _	____L r	~ ~ —	~ — - _—L_-- — U~	_	~	~I -~~-~—R•~-S
	Person interviewed	~ i~ll~r
7Gaf w. Sŕŕond Avernii ‚ Pine Bluff ‚ Arkansas
	Age___85 ~	Oooupation~ Yardme~






	“Mistress, 1,11 tell you what my mother said. She said she birthed ~ on Christmas morning in 1852 in &mipter County, Georgia. It was on her old master‘s place. Bright Herring was hIs n~e. Old mistress‘ name was Miss Lizzie. My father belonged to a different owner.

	“Mac McClendon and 3~ohn Mourning was two nigger traders and they brought my mother and sister Nancy and sister I4za and my sister Anna and Hardy Miller ‚-‚- that ‚ s me —‚- out here on the train from Americus ‚ Georgia to Meniphis and put us on a steamboat and brought us here to Pine Bluff and sold me to 1h‘. Pope. He was a poor white man and he wanted a pair of zug‘gore. He bought me and Laura Beckwith. In them days a doctor examined you aud if your heart was sound and your lungs was sound and you didn ‚ t have no broken bones —— have to pay one hundred dollars for every year yotu was old, That was in 1862 arid I was ten years old so they sold me 2or one thousand dollars end one thousand dollars for Laura cause she was sound too. Carried us down to Monticello and when I got free my mammy came &fter fl~s

	“Fore I left Georgia, my daddy belonged to a man named Bill Ramsey. You see niggera used the name of their masters,

	“I can remember when I was a boy Bill Ramsey set my father free and give him a free pass and anybody hire him have to pay just like they pay a nigger now. My daddy hired my maniny from her master. My memmy was her ~fla8ter‘s daughter by a colored woman,