Jesse Meeks
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jesse Meeks
707 Elm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 76
Occupation: Minister
"I am seventy-six. 'Course I was young in slavery times, but I can
remember some things. I remember how they used to feed us. Put milk and
bread or poke salad and corn-meal dumplin's in a trough and give you a
wooden spoon and all the children eat together.
"We stayed with our old master fourteen years. They were good folks and
treated us right. My old master's name was Sam Meeks--in Longview, Drew
County, Arkansas, down here below Monticello.
"I got a letter here about a month ago from the daughter of my young
mistress. I wrote to my young mistress and she was dead, so her daughter
got the letter. She answered it and sent me a dollar and asked me was I
on the Old Age Pension list.
"As far as I know, I am the onliest one of the old darkies living that
belonged to Sam Meeks.
"I remember when the Ku Klux run in on my old master. That was after the
War. He was at the breakfast table with his wife. You know in them days
they didn't have locks and keys. Had a hole bored through a board and
put a peg in it, and I know the Ku Klux come up and stuck a gun through
the auger hole and shot at old master but missed him. He run to the door
and shot at the Ku Klux. I know us children found one of 'em down at the
spring bathin' his leg where old master had shot him.
"Oh! they were good folks and treated us right."
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Jesse Meeks
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Joe Mayes
