IntervieWør~	Miss Irene Robertson

Person	interviewed  ~ Arkansas

	MetJ~ In 70‘s






	“I come to dis state In 1885. 1 run oft from my parents back in North Carolina. They was working in a turpentine forest there.

	“When freedom was declared my folks heard ‚ bout a place ~here money was easy to make. So they walked from clown close to Charleston up there and carried the children. I was ‘bout nine or ten years old0 I liked the farm so I left the turpentine farm. I got to rambling rouml and finally got to Arkansas. I rim off from my folks cause they kept staying re. I was a child and don‘t recollect mach ‘bout slavery. I was at the quarters wid all the children. My mother b‘longed to Bob Plat and my father to a man named Rogers. ~tLy father could get a pass and come to see us every Sunday providin‘ he didn‘t go nowhere else or stop long the road, He cane early and stay till bedtime. We all run to meet him. He kiss us all in bed when he be leavin‘.

	‚t I heard them say they ‚ spected a home and freedom but when the time Come they muster forgot ‘bout home cause they just took the few clothes In bundles and left. Then they had a hard time ‘cause they never thought how freedom would be. They never axed for nothin‘ and they never got nothin‘.

They didn‘t understand how to hustle lest sai~body tell them what to do next. They did have a hard time and it was cold and rocky up in North Carolina to what they had been used to down close to Charlestons
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