Ben Parr
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ben Parr, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 85 next March (1938)
"I was born in Tennessee close to Ripley. My master was Charles Warpoo
and Catherine Warpoo. They had three boys and two girls. They owned my
mama and me and Gentry was the oldest child. He died last year. My mama
raised twelve children. My papa belong to people over on the Mississippi
River. Their name was Parr but I couldn't tell a thing about them. When
I come to know about them was after freedom. There was Jim Parr, Dick
Parr, Columbus Parr. We lived on their place. Both my parents was farm
hands, and all twelve children wid them.
"Well, the first I recollect is that we lived on the five acre lot, the
big house, and some of the slaves lived in houses around the big yard
all fenced with pailings and nice pickett fence in front of Charlie
Warpoo's house. We played around under the trees all day. The soldiers
come nearly every day and nearly et us out of house and home. The blue
coats seemed the hungriest or greediest pear lack. They both come.
Master didn't go to war; his boys was too young to go, so we was all at
home. My papa shunned the war. He said he didn't give a pickayune
whether he be free or not, it wouldn't do no good if he be dead nohow.
He didn't live with us doe (though). They kept papa pretty well hid out
with stock in the Mississippi River bottoms. He wasn't scared ceptin'
when he come over to see my mama and us. When we come to know anything
we was free.
"I never seen nobody sold. None of my folks was sold. The folks raised
my mama and they didn't want her to leave. The folks raised papa what
had him at freedom. He said him and mama was married long before the war
sprung up. I don't know how they married nor where. She was young when
they married.
"I remember hearing mama say when you went to preaching you sit in the
back of the church and sit still till the preaching was all over. They
had no leaving.
"I know when I was a child people raised children, now they let them
grow up. Children was sent off or out to play, not sit and listen to
what grown folks had to say. Now the children is educated and too smart
to listen to good advice. They are going to ruination. Mama used to have
our girls knit at night and she spin, weave, sew. They would tell us how
to be polite and honest and how to work. Young folks too smart to take
advice now.
"Mama was cooking at the Warpoo's house; she cooked breakfast. One
morning I woke up and here was a yard full of 'Feds.' I was hungry. I
went through the whole regiment--a yard full--to mama hard as I could
split. They didn't bother me. I was afraid they would carry me off
sometimes. They was great hands to tease and worry the little Negro
children.
"Over at Dyersburg, Tennessee the Ku Klux was bad. Jefferie Segress was
pretty prosperous, owned his own home. John Carson whooped him, cut his
ear off, treated him bad. High Sheriff they said was a 'Fed.' He put
twenty-four buck shots in John Carson. That was the last of the Ku Klux
at Dyersburg. The Negroes all left Dyersburg. They kept leaving. The
'Feds' was meaner to them than the owners. In 1886, three weeks before
Christmas, one hundred head of Negroes got off the train here at
Brinkley. The Ku Klux was the tail end of the war, whooping around. It
was a fight between the 'Feds' and the old owners--both sides telling
the Negroes what to do. The best way was stay at home and work to keep
out of trouble.
"The bushwhackers killed Raymond Jones (black man) before the war
closed. Well, I don't know what they ambushed for.
"I paid my own way to Arkansas. I brought my wife. Mama was dead.
"If the Negro is a taxpayer he ought to vote like white folks. But they
can't run the government. That was tried out after that war we been
talking about. Our color has faith in white folks and this is their
country. I vote some. We got a good right to vote. We helped clear out
the country. It is our home now.
"The present times is too fast. I can't place this young generation.
"This is my second wife I'm living wid now. She's got children. I never
had a child. We gets $10 off of the Welfare and I work around at pick-up
jobs. I farmed all my whole life."
Next:
Frank A Patterson
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Austin Pen Parnell
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