Interviewer: Miss Bailie C. Miller Person interviewed: Mag Brown, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 85

"I was born in North Carolina and come South with my white folks. They was trying to git out of the war and run right into it. My mother died when I was a baby. I don't remember my mother no more than you do. I left my white folks. When I was 14 years old, we lived out in the country. They was willing to keep me but after the war they was so poor. The girls told me if I could come to town and find work I had better do it. Two of them come nearly to town with me. They told me I was free to come to town and live with the colored folks. I didn't know what it meant to be free. I was just as free as I wanted to be with my white folks. When I got to town I stayed with your aunt awhile then she sent me down to stay with your grandma. A white girl who lived with them, like one of the family, learned me how to cook and iron. I knew how to wash.

"I don't know anything about the present generation. I ain't been able to git out for the last year or two. I think I broke my foot, for I had to go on crutches a long time.

"The white folks always sung but I don't know what they sung. I didn't pay no tention to it then."