Ivory Osborne
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Ivory Osborne
Route 5, Box 158, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Know about slavery? Sho I do--I was born in '52. Born in Arkansas? No
ma'm, born in Texas.
"Oh yes, indeed, I had a good master. Good to me, indeed. I was that
high when the war started. I member everything. Take me from now till
dark to tell you everything I know bout slavery.
"I put in three years and five months, choppin' cotton and corn. I
member the very day, on the 10th of May, old mistress blowed the conk
and told us we was free.
"Oh Lord, I had a good time.
"I never was whipped.
"Ku Klux used to run me. Run me clear from the plum orchard bout a mile
from the house. Run to my mistress at the big house.
"Miss Ann had eight darkies and told her stepmother, 'Don't you put your
hand on em.' She didn't either.
"I went to school since 'mancipation in Nacitosh. Learned to read and
write. Was in the eighth grade when I left. Stood at the head of every
class. They couldn't get me down. I done got old and forgot now.
"I didn't know the difference between slavery and free, I never was
whipped.
"Did I ever vote? You know I voted, old as I am. Ain't voted in over
forty years. I ain't nobody. My wife's eighty. I've had her forty years.
Cose I voted the Republican ticket. You never seed a colored person a
Democrat in your life.
"In slavery days we killed seventy-five or eighty hogs every year. And I
don't mean shoats, I mean hogs. I ain't lost my membrance."
Next:
Jane Osbrook
Previous:
Jane Oliver
Informational
