Benjamin Diggs
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Benjamin Diggs
420 N. Cypress, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79
"I was born in 1859 in North Carolina. Oh, sure, I remember when the
Yankees come through. They said they done right smart of damage. I
remember goin' by a place where they had burned it down. They didn't do
nothin' to my white folks 'cept took the stock.
"The Lyles was my white folks. They called her Polly Lyles. Oh, they was
good to us. My mother and her sister and another colored woman and we
children all belonged to one set of people--Miss Polly Lyles; and my
father belonged to the Diggs.
"After freedom we moved off but they was good to us just the same, and
we was glad to pay 'em a visit and they was glad to have us.
"I've heard my mother say she'd ignore the idea of a cold biscuit but my
father said he was glad to get one. He said he didn't get 'em but once a
week.
"Oh, indeed there was a lot of difference in the way the colored folks
was treated. Some of 'em was very good, just like they is now.
"Well, all those old people is dead and gone now 'cause they was old
then.
"I come here to Arkansas in '88. That was when they was emigratin' the
folks. I was grown and married then. I was twenty-six when I married in
'85.
"I went to school a little. I can sorta scribble a little and read a
little, but my eyes is failin' now. I started wearin' glasses 'fore I
really needed 'em. I got to projectin' with my mother's glasses Looked
like they read so good.
"Farmin' is all I know how to do. Never done anything else. I owned some
land and farmed for myself.
"Sure, I used to vote--Republican. I never had any trouble. I always
tried to conduct my life to avoid trouble. I believe in that policy.
"I joined the church when I was very young, very young. I go by the
Golden Rule and by the Bible.
"I first lived in Pope County.
"I learned since I come here to Pine Bluff there's enough churches here
to save the world, but there's some mean people here."
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Katie Dillon
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James Dickey
