project #1655
Henry Grant,
Columbia, 3. C.	~



JA~T1S JOHNSON
THE COT20N MAN •
EX-SLAVE 7 9 YEARS OLD.


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	James Johnson lives with a siBter at 1045 Barron Street, College Place,

s.	C. He is incapable of self supporb on account of age, ill health, and impaired feet. One of his feet was mashed off end the other b&çIly damaged by handling bales of cotton several years ago • He aubsi8ts on what his sister and other people are able to give him.

	‚t I has been livin‘ right hers in Columbia for the past thirty-six years. I has worked in de cotton business, first as ginner and then wid cottonbuyers, ever since I has been here. I knows all de grades of lirrG cotton and cari name then~ right now. (He ran throughthe different gradeS fairly correc~1 ) ~

	t, I learned ail I knows ‘bout cotton and de grades from Mr~ M. C. Heath and Mr. ~. ~. S~.th, cotton buyers in Columbia for thirty years or more. They thought so much of my knowledge of cotton, dat they sent me inatiy times to settle daune wid big men and big buyers. (a)

	t, It ain‘t what a nigger knows dat keeps him down. No, sire It is what hedon‘t know, dat keeps de black man in de background. White folks dat is business folie, pays no ‘tention to our color as much as they does to dat mon-

	~	Inakin‘ power us has. Of course, de white man 8ticks to his color and you can‘t blame him for dat. If de nigger shows dat he is willin‘ to work and to ~ learn to be busineGs lak ‚ make money and walk straight ~d~d his boss end f eilOWThan, de better class of de white people is gwine to treat him right. I k~ow~ what ;~ ‘a. tellin‘ yo u is ‚ from my own ‘sperience wìd ~. heath and Mr.

Smith, ‘1~hey always treated me better than I deserved and even now in n~r