Joseph Samuel Badgett Interviewed By Samuel S Taylor
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Joseph Samuel Badgett
1221 Wright Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 72
[HW: Mother was a Fighter]
"My mother had Indian in her. She would fight. She was the pet of the
people. When she was out, the pateroles would whip her because she
didn't have a pass. She has showed me scars that were on her even till
the day that she died. She was whipped because she was out without a
pass. She could have had a pass any time for the asking, but she was too
proud to ask. She never wanted to do things by permission.
Birth
"I was born in 1864. I was born right here in Dallas County. Some of the
most prominent people in this state came from there. I was born on
Thursday, in the morning at three o'clock, May the twelfth. My mother
has told me that so often, I have it memorized.
Persistence of Slave Customs
"While I was a slave and was born close to the end of the Civil War, I
remember seeing many of the soldiers down here. I remember much of the
treatment given to the slaves. I used to say 'master' myself in my day.
We had to do that till after '69 or '70. I remember the time when I
couldn't go nowhere without asking the 'white folks.' I wasn't a slave
then but I couldn't go off without asking the white people. I didn't
know no better.
"I have known the time in the southern part of this state when if you
wanted to give an entertainment you would have to ask the white folks.
Didn't know no better. For years and years, most of the niggers just
stayed with the white folks. Didn't want to leave them. Just took what
they give 'em and didn't ask for nothing different.
"If I had known forty years ago what I know now!
First Negro Doctor in Tulip, Arkansas
"The first Negro doctor we ever seen come from Little Rock down to
Tulip, Arkansas. We were all excited. There were plenty of people who
didn't have a doctor living with twenty miles of them. When I was
fourteen years old, I was secretary of a conference.
Schooling
"What little I know, an old white woman taught me. I started to school
under this old woman because there weren't any colored teachers. There
wasn't any school at Tulip where I lived. This old lady just wanted to
help. I went to her about seven years. She taught us a little every
year--'specially in the summer time. She was high class--a high class
Christian woman--belonged to the Presbyterian church. Her name was Mrs.
Gentry Wiley.
"I went to school to Scipio Jones once. Then they opened a public school
at Tulip and J.C. Smith taught there two years in the summer time. Then
Lula Baily taught there one year. She didn't know no more than I did.
Then Scipio came. He was there for a while. I don't remember just how
long.
"After that I went to Pine Bluff. The County Judge at that time had the
right to name a student from each district. I was appointed and went up
there in '82 and '83 from my district. It took about eight years to
finish Branch Normal at that time. I stayed there two years. I roomed
with old man John Young.
"You couldn't go to school without paying unless you were sent by the
Board. We lived in the country and I would go home in the winter and
study in the summer. Professor J.C. Corbin was principal of the Pine
Bluff Branch Normal at that time. Dr. A.H. Hill, Professor Booker, and
quite a number of the people we consider distinguished were in school
then. They finished, but I didn't. I had to go to my mother because she
was ill. I don't claim to have no schooling at all.
"Forty Acres and a Mule"
"My mother received forty acres of land when freedom came. Her master
gave it to her. She was given forty acres of land and a colt. There is
no more to tell about that. It was just that way--a gift of forty acres
of land and a colt from her former master.
"My mother died. There is a woman living now that lost it (the home).
Mother let Malinda live on it. Mother lived with the white folks
meanwhile. She didn't need the property for herself. She kept it for us.
She built a nice log house on it. Fifteen acres of it was under
cultivation when it was given to her. My sister lived on it for a long
time. She mortgaged it in some way I don't know how. I remember when the
white people ran me down there some years back to get me to sign a title
to it. I didn't have to sign the paper because the property had been
deeded to Susan Badgett and HEIRS; lawyers advised me not to sign it.
But I signed it for the sake of my sister.
Father and Master
"My mother's master was named Badgett--Captain John Badgett. He was a
Methodist preacher. Some of the Badgetts still own property on Main
Street. My mother's master's father was my daddy.
Marriage
"I was married July 12, 1889. Next year I will have been married fifty
years. My wife's name was Elizabeth Owens. She was born in Batesville,
Mississippi. I met her at Brinkley when she was visiting her aunt. We
married in Brinkley. Very few people in this city have lived together
longer than we have. July 12, 1938, will make forty-nine years. By July
1939, we will have reached our fiftieth anniversary.
Patrollers, Jayhawkers, Ku Klux, and Ku Klux Klan
"Pateroles, Jayhawkers, and the Ku Klux came before the war. The Ku Klux
in slavery times were men who would catch Negroes out and keep them if
they did not collect from their masters. The Pateroles would catch
Negroes out and return them if they did not have a pass. They whipped
them sometimes if they did not have a pass. The Jayhawkers were highway
men or robbers who stole slaves among other things. At least, that is
the way the people regarded them. The Jayhawkers stole and pillaged,
while the Ku Klux stole those Negroes they caught out. The word 'Klan'
was never included in their name.
"The Ku Klux Klan was an organization which arose after the Civil War.
It was composed of men who believed in white supremacy and who regulated
the morals of the neighborhood. They were not only after Jews and
Negroes, but they were sworn to protect the better class of people. They
took the law in their own hands.
Slave Work
"I'm not so certain about the amount of work required of slaves. My
mother says she picked four hundred pounds of cotton many a day. The
slaves were tasked and given certain amounts to accomplish. I don't know
the exact amount nor just how it was determined.
Opinions
"It is too bad that the young Negroes don't know what the old Negroes
think and what they have done. The young folks could be helped if they
would take advice."
Interviewer's Comment
Badgett's distinctions between jayhawkers, Ku Klux, patrollers, and Ku
Klux Klan are most interesting.
I have been slow to catch it. All my life, I have heard persons with
ex-slave background refer to the activities of the Ku Klux among slaves
prior to 1865. I always thought that they had the Klux Klan and the
patrollers confused.
Badgett's definite and clear-cut memories, however, lead me to believe
that many of the Negroes who were slaves used the word Ku Klux to denote
a type of persons who stole slaves. It was evidently in use before it
was applied to the Ku Klux Klan.
The words "Ku Klux" and "Ku Klux Klan" are used indiscriminately in
current conversation and literature. It is also true that many persons
in the present do, and in the past did, refer to the Ku Klux Klan simply
as "Ku Klux."
It is a matter of record that the organization did not at first bear the
name "Ku Klux Klan" throughout the South. The name "Ku Klux" seems to
have grown in application as the organization changed from a moral
association of the best citizens of the South and gradually came under
the control of lawless persons with lawless methods--whipping and
murdering. It is antecedently reasonable that the change in names
accompanying a change in policy would be due to a fitness in the prior
use of the name.
The recent use of the name seems mostly imitation and propaganda.
Histories, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, in general, do not record a
meaning of the term Ku Klux as prior to the Reconstruction period.
Next:
Ex-slave Jeff Bailey Interviewed By Samuel S Taylor
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Lillie Baccus Interviewed By Irene Robertson
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