Shepherd Rhone
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person Interviewed: Shepherd Rhone
10th and Kentucky
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 75
"Yes ma'am, I was bred and born in 'sixty-three in Phillips County,
Arkansas, close to Helena, on old Judge Jones' plantation. Judge Jones,
he was a lawyer. Remember him? I ought to, he whiped me enough. His
wife's name was Caroline Jones. She used to smack my jaws and pull
my ears but she was a pretty good woman. The old judge was a raw one
though. You had to step around or he'd step around for you.
"I stayed right there till I was grown. My mother was named Katie Rhone
and my father was named Daniel Rhone. My mother was born in Richmond,
Virginia and my father in Petersburg, Virginia.
"Judge Jones brought em here to Arkansas. My father was a bodyguard for
old Judge Jones' son Tom in the War. My father stuck with him till peace
declared--had to do it.
"They was thirteen of us chillun and they is all gone but me, and I'll
soon be gone.
"I know when the Yankees come I run from em. When peace declared, the
Yankees come all through our house and took everything they could get
hold of to eat.
"The only reason the Yankees whipped the South was they starved em.
"I know one time when peace declared I caught afire and I run and jumped
in a tub of water and I had sense enough not to tell my mother. A girl I
was raised up with went and told her though.
"After freedom I worked for old Judge Jones on the half system. He give
me everthing that was due me. When he was eighty years old, he called
all his old tenants up and give em a mule and twenty-five dollars. He
was pretty good to em after all.
"I went to free school in the summertime after the crops was laid by, I
can read and write pretty good.
"I came here to Jefferson County in 'eighty-six and I put in thirty-six
years at the Cotton Belt Shops. When that strike come on they told us
colored folks to quit and I never went back. I worked for em when she
was a narrow gauge.
"I worked in the North three years. I nightwatched all over St. Louis
and Madison, Illinois. I liked it fine up there--white folks is more
familiar up there and seems like you can get favors. If I don't get
somethin' here, I'm goin' back up there.
"When I got big enough I voted the Republican ticket and after they got
this primary. I think the colored people ought to vote now cause they
make em pay taxes.
"I'll tell you right now, the younger generation is goin' to the dogs.
We'll never make a nation of em as long as they go out to these places
at night. They ought to be a law passed. When nine o'clock comes they
ought to be home in bed, but they is just gettin' started then.
"I belong to the Catholic Church. I think it's a pretty good church. We
have a white priest and I'll tell you one thing thing--you can't get a
divorce and marry again and stay in the Catholic Church."
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Dora Richard
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James Reeves
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