“Old man Tom Murphy raised me up to a big nigger and never did whip me but twice and that was cause I got drunk on tobacco and turned out his horse.

“Yes ma’am, I voted till bout two or three years ago.  Oh Lawd, the colored used to hold office down in the country.  I’ve voted for white and black.

“Some of the colored folks better off free and some not.  That’s what I think but they don’t.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed:  Emma Oats (Mulatto)
                    Holly Grove, Ark. 
Age:  90 or older

“I was born in St. Louis.  My mother died when I was little.  I never knowed no father. (He was probably a white man.) Jack Oats raised me.  Jim Oats at Helena was his son.  He is still living.  He come through here (Holly Grove) not long ago.  I was raised on the Esque place.

“I was fraid of my grandma.  I wouldn’t live with her.  I know’d her.  She was a big woman, big white eyes, big thick lips, and had ’Molly Glaspy hair,’ long straight soft hair.  She was a African woman.  She made my clothes.  I was fraid of her.  I never lived with her.  My folks was all free folks.  When my mother died my uncle took us—­me and brother.  He hired us out and we got stole.  Gene Oglesby stole us and brought us to Memphis to Joe Nivers.  I recken he sold us then.  Then they stood me up in the parlor and sold me to Jack Oats.  They said I was ‘good pluck.’  Joe Nivers sold me to Jack Oats for $1,150.00 when I was four years old.  My brother was name Milton Smith.  I ain’t seen him from that day till this.  Joe Nivers kept him, I recken.  I come here on a ’legal tender’—­name of the boat I recken.  I know that.  I recken it was name of a boat.  I got off and Thornton Walls, old colored man, toted me cross every mud hole we come to.  He belong to Bud Walls’ (white man at Holly Grove) daddy.  When we got home Jack Oats and all of em was there.

“I slept on a pallet and lounge and took care of their children.  I played round.  Done bout as I pleased.  They had a cook they called Aunt Joe—­Joe Oats.  We had plenty to eat and wear.  They dressed me like one their children.  We had good flannel clothes.  When she washed her children she washed me too.  When she combed their hair she combed mine too.  She kept working with it till I had pretty hair.  Some of her children died.  It hurt me bad as it did them.  All I done was play with em and see after em.  Their names was Sam, John, Dixie, Sallie, Jim.  I went in the hack to church; if she took the children, she took me.  I was a good size girl when she died.  The last word she spoke was to me; she said, ‘Emma, take care of my children.’  Dr. John Chester was her doctor.

“Oats come here from North Alabama.  Will Oats, Wyatt Oats, and Jack Oats—­all brothers.

“When mistress living we took a bath every Friday in a sawed-intwo barrel (wooden tub).  The cook done our washing.  We had clean fresh clothes.  We had to dress up every few days.  If we get dirty she say she would give us lashes.  She never give me none, I never was sassy (saucy).  That what most of em got 10 lashes, 25, 50 lashes for.