He came, a youth, singing in the dawn Of a new freedom, glowing o'er his lyre, Refining, as with great Apollo's fire, His people's gift of song. And thereupon, This Negro singer, come to Helicon Constrained the masters, listening t... Read more of Paul Laurence Dunbar at Martin Luther King.caInformational Site Network Informational
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Alfred Peters




From: Arkansas

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Alfred Peters, 1518 Bell Street,
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78


"I was born seven miles from Camden.

"I was 'leven months old when they carried us to Texas. First thing I
remember I was in Texas.

"Lucius Grimm was old master. He's been dead a long time. His wife died
'bout two years after the Civil War and he died twenty-five years after.

"I 'member durin' of the war he buried his stuff---silverware and
stuff--and he never took it up. And after he died his brother's son
lived in California, and he come back and dug it up.

"The Yankees burned up four hundred bales of cotton and taken the meat
and two cribs of corn.

"I heard 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux but I never did see 'em.

"My mother said old Mars Lucius was good to his folks. She said he first
bought her and then she worried so 'bout my father, he paid twenty-five
hundred dollars for him.

"Biggest part of my life I farmed, and then I done carpenter work.

"I been blind four years. The doctor says it's cataracts.

"I think the younger generation goin' to cause another war. They ain't
studyin' nothin' but pleasure."





Next: Mary Estes Peters
Previous: Dinah Perry




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