Bernice Wilburn
From:
Arkansas
Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Bernice Bowden
ADDRESS--1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
DATE--November 3, 1938
SUBJECT--Exslaves
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
1. Name and address of informant--Moses Mitchell, 117 Worthen Street
2. Date and time of interview--November 1, 1938, 1:00 p.m.
3. Place of interview--117 Worthen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
4. Place and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with
informant--Bernice Wilburn, 101 Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.--A frame house
(rented), bare floors, no window shades; a bed and some boxes and three
straight chairs. In an adjoining room were another bed, heating stove,
two trunks, one straight chair, one rocking chair. A third room, the
kitchen, contained cookstove and table and chairs.
Text of Interview
"I was born down here on White River near Arkansas Post, August, 1849. I
belonged to Thomas Mitchel and when they (Yankees) took Arkansas Post,
our owners gathered us up and my young master took us to Texas and he
sold me to an Irishman named John McInish in Marshall for $1500. $500 in
gold and the rest in Confederate money. They called it the new issue.
"I was twelve years old then and I stayed in Texas till I was
forty-eight. I was at Tyler, Texas when they freed us. When they took us
to Texas they left my mother and baby sister here in Arkansas, down here
on Oak Log Bayou. I never saw her again and when I came back here to
Arkansas, they said she had been dead twenty-eight years. Never did hear
of my father again.
"I'm supposed to be part Creek Indian. Don't know how much. We have one
son, a farmer, lives across the river. Married this wife in 1873.
"My wife and I left Texas forty-one years ago and came back here to
Arkansas and stayed till 1922. Then we went to Chicago and stayed till
1930, and then came back here. I'd like to go back up there, but I guess
I'm gettin' too old. While I was there I preached and I worked all the
time. I worked on the streets and the driveways in Lincoln Park. I was
in the brick and block department. Then I went from there to the asphalt
department. There's where I coined the money. Made $6.60 in the brick
and block and $7.20 a day in the asphalt. Down here they don't know no
more about asphalt than a pig does about a holiday. A man that's from
the South and never been nowhere, don't know nothin', a woman either.
"Yes ma'm, I'm a preacher. Just a local preacher, wasn't ordained. The
reason for that was, in Texas a man over forty-five couldn't join the
traveling connection. I was licensed, but of course I couldn't perform
marriage ceremonies. I was just within one step of that.
"I went to school two days in my life. I was privileged to go to the
first free school in Texas. Had a teacher named Goldman. Don't know what
year that was but they found out me and another fellow was too old so
they wouldn't let us go no more. But I caught my alphabet in them two
days. So I just caught what education I've got, here and there. I can
read well--best on my Bible and Testament and I read the newspapers. I
can sorta scribble my name.
"I've been a farmer most of my life and a preacher for fifty-five years.
I can repair shoes and use to do common carpenter work. I can help build
a house. I only preach occasionally now, here and there. I belong to the
Allen Temple in Hoboken (East Pine Bluff).
"I think the young generation is gone to naught. They're a different cut
to what they was in my comin' up."
Interviewer's Comment
This man and his wife live in the outskirts of West pine Bluff. They
receive a small sum of money and commodities from the County Welfare
Department. He has a very pleasant personality, a good memory and
intelligence above the ordinary. Reads the Daily Graphic and Arkansas
Gazette. Age 89. He said, "Here's the idea, freedom is worth it all."
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry--Father, Lewis Mitchell; Mother, Rhoda Mitchell
2. Place and date of birth--Oak Log Bayou, White River, near Arkansas
Post, Ark.
3. Family--Wife and one grown son.
4. Places lived in, with dates--Taken to Texas by his young master and
sold in Marshall during the war. Lived in Tyler, Texas until forty-eight
years of age; came back to Arkansas in 1897 and stayed until 1922; went
to Chicago and lived until 1930; back to Jefferson County, Arkansas.
5. Education, with dates--Two days after twenty-one years of age. No
date.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates--Farmer, preacher, common
carpenter, cobbler, public work on streets in Chicago, farmed and
preached until he went to Chicago in 1922. The he worked in the
maintenance department of city streets of Chicago and of Lincoln Park,
Chicago.
7. Special skills and interests--Asphalt worker
8. Community and religious activities--Licensed Methodist Preacher. No
assignment now.
9. Description of informant--Five feet eight inches tall; weight, 165
pounds, nearly bald. Very prominent cheek bones. Keen intelligence.
Neatly dressed.
10. Other points gained in interview--Reads daily papers; knowledge of
world affairs.
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Ben Moon
Previous:
Mary Mitchell
Informational
