Oral History from a Richland Parish native, Josephine Williams Dawson Submitted by for the USGenWeb Archives by Jacqueline Tarleton, 05/09/2004 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. The manuscript is made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to Jacqueline Tarleton. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Jacqueline Tarleton. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to Jacqueline Tarleton, 903 Rocking Spur Cove, Pflugerville, TX 78660 and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. She requires that she be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Jacqueline Tarleton, The Invisible History of Richland Parish: An African American Perspective, an interview with Josephine Dawson conducted May 7, 2004 by Jacqueline Tarleton. Jacqueline Tarleton Interviewer 07 May 2004 6:30pm to 7:02pm Personal Background Interview with Josephine (Williams) Dawson, age 76 in the Dallas, Texas area. Born February 17, 1927 in Archibald, Louisiana, she is the daughter of Johnnie Ezekiel Williams and Vicie Ragsdale. Vicie Ragsdale Williams is the daughter of Ed Ragsdale and Easter Berry of Rayville, Louisiana. The US Census report indicates that Ed and Easter were born in Mississippi. Easter’s death certificate states that she was born in Macon County Mississippi. Thus far no record can be found of a Macon County Mississippi. No record can be found of Ed Ragsdale other than the US census reports of 1900 and 1910. The 1910 census states that both Ed and Easter were born in Mississippi. Since Ed is missing from the 1920 US census and the family is scattered, it is believed that Ed died between 1910 and 1920. Several generations of Ed Ragsdales inherit the name. Ed is a popular name with both black and white Ragsdales. Oral history says that Ed was an emancipated slave purchased by “Ol’ Man Ragsdale” when he was a young child. Oral history varies as to whether Ed was brought to Rayville or taken to Arkansas, but the US census record of 1900 show him living in Richland Parish with his wife Easter several children including Josephine’s mother Vicie. Family oral history says that the relationship between Ed and Old Man Ragsdale was friendly and that Ed was treated as a son by Old Man Ragsdale. Oral history says that Old Man Ragsdale went north after the Civil War to live with his family in Arkansas. The age of Ed at the time of his purchase varies by the story teller, but the age is consistently very a young child between being a toddler and a preschooler. After the end of the Civil War, Ed known to have settled in Richland Parish area of what is now known as Rural Rayville, Louisiana. Ed married a woman named “Easter.” 15 children were listed in the 1910 US Census Record for Richland Parish. Since Ed and Easter were illiterate, oral history was the only available history. Interviewer’s note: The following interview was a recent one. It’s purpose was to clarify an earlier interview, but the interviewee began to cover new memories of Richland Parish. The interviewer apologizes for the great number of yes no questions, but they served as icebreakers and prompts to gain access to memories. This transcript is from a phone conversation word-for-word. Mrs. Dawson is uncomfortable with tape recorders. It is hoped that eventually she will feel comfortable with taped interviews. Knowing that oral history projects are acceptable as helpers to historians may cause her and other elderly people to speak up about the good, the bad and the ugly in US history. This interviewer is in the process of confirming oral history through official records, but for invisible African Americans who were listed as “farm laborers” in US Census Reports, the process is a tedious one. Records are often missing, destroyed, or they never existed in the first place. Keywords: Louisiana locations: Richland Parish, Rayville, Hammond, Archibald, Alto, New Orleans, Justice Center, Red Hill Baptist Church, Sunshine Baptist Church, Rayville High School, Nigger Town, Arkansas, Mississippi. People: Old Man Ragsdale, Ed, Easter, Josephine Dawson, Vicie Ragsdale Williams, Johnnie Ezekiel Williams, Arby Thompson, Curtis Hanley, Sallie Bishop, Emma Spencer, Hattie Spencer, African American. Things and Events: Cotton crop damage, debt, sharecropping, migrant workers, education, farm labor, Rayville High School. Interview Began 6:30pm Tarleton: I know you don’t like to talk about the old days… Dawson: Naw. Tarleton: …but I really need to get this information from you. It is not recorded anywhere. Dawson: I don’t want to talk about them days. Jackie, Leave those people alone. Tarleton: Tell me what the fear is. Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: What is the fear of just telling your story. Dawson: I don’t know. I just don’t want to talk about it. Tarleton: If you will just tell me a little of what you do know, it will help me out a lot. It will help my kids know where they came from. Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Ok? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: When were you born? Dawson: February 17, 1927. Tarleton: Where were you born? Archibald, Louisiana. Tarleton: Who delivered you? Dawson: A lady by the name of Sallie Bishop. What were you all doing so far from Rayville? Dawson: My daddy’s sister had a farm named Emma Spencer Tarleton: Emma was your daddy’s aunt? Yeah. Tarleton: Did they live on the land that Ed bought? Dawson: No. They lived on Emma Spencer’s farm and worked the farm. Tarleton: Emma Spencer had her own farm? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: And they worked her farm? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: How old was Ed when he was sold as a slave? Dawson: He was 2 years old when they put him on a stump and sold him to Ed Ragsdale for two hundred dollars (said rapidly without a breath.) Tarleton: Who told you the story? Dawson: My momma did. Tarleton: Vice Ragsdale? Dawson: Yeah. My momma was named after her daddy’s sister Vicie. Tarleton: Do you remember her last name? Dawson: No. Tarleton: Was he bought in Rayville? Dawson: No. He went up there to buy some babies and Ed was pretty so he bought him and brought him to Rayville. Tarleton: How did Ed know he had a sister? Dawson: Well, I don’t know about that, but his oldest brother watched him and seen it was a man named Ragsdale from Rayville Louisiana that bought him. After the war they came and found him. Tarleton: You told me before that he was a Jordan. How did that happen? Dawson: Well, you know in them days it was slavery. They was Jordan’s first and then Ed was bought by Old Man Ragsdale. When the master changed, the slave’s name changed. Old Man Ragsdale told him that his name was Ed Ragsdale and that’s what he called himself. Tarleton: How was Ed treated by Old Man Ragsdale? Dawson: Well, he was treated real good, like he was his son. Tarleton: What was it about Ed that made him buy him? Dawson: Well, he was looking for babies and Ed was real pretty. They put him on a stump and sold him for $200. Tarleton: That was a lot of money back then? Dawson: (Laughter)Ooh yeah. That was a lot of money back in them days. (more laughter) Tarleton: How would they know that Ed was worth that kind of money? Dawson: I don’t know. He was pretty. He looked like an Indian. Tarleton: What made Ed look like an Indian? Dawson: Momma said he wore his hair long down his back like an Indian. (More laughter) Tarleton: Did you have Native Americans living nearby? Dawson: Huh? Tarleton: Indians? Yeah. Tarleton: How do you know? Dawson: (Voice sounds irritated) They looked like Indians. Tarleton: What did they wear? Dawson: Clothes like the Indians wear on TV. Tarleton: How did you get to see them? Dawson: When I was a little girl I saw the Indians. They sold us fish down by the river. Tarleton: So the black folks bought the fish from the Indians? Yeah. Tarleton: What ever happened to those Indians? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: Do you think Ed was a mixed Indian? Dawson: Yeah. That’s what my momma said. Dawson: All the peoples said he looked like an Indian. Tarleton: What ever happened to Old Man Ragsdale? Dawson: I don’t know. They said he went back to Arkansas to live with his peoples. He was old. Tarleton: Ed didn’t go back with him? Dawson: No. He stayed here and worked on the farms. Tarleton: How did Ed get his land? Dawson: He had a family and a man told him, “Ed, you got a family and you living in a tent. You need to buy you some land to put your family on.” Tarleton: A white man or a black man? Dawson: A white man. Tarleton: So he bought how much land? Dawson: (insulted voice) 10 acres. He knowed he ought to bought more land than that to raise all those kids. Tarleton: Maybe he didn’t have all those kids at the time? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: At the time, for a black man to own his own land was a big thing. Dawson: Yeah (voice quiet) Tarleton: Many black men today do not own their own land. That was a big deal back in those days. Dawson: Yeah, but he should have bought more land than that to take care of all those kids.(frustrated voice) Tarleton: Maybe, but he had no way to know any different. Maybe he thought his kids would buy their own land. He had been a slave. He had no way to know the future. Dawson: No. (resigned voice) Tarleton: What do you remember about Rayville? Dawson: Nothing. Tarleton: Was it a good town or a bad town? Dawson: It was a nice little town. Tarleton: How did they treat the black folks? Dawson: (No answer) Tarleton: What there anywhere you couldn’t go? Dawson: There was a white part of town and Nigga town. Tarleton: So you could go to Nigga Town? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Nigga Town was a nice place? Dawson: Yeah Tarleton: Nobody bothered you if you stayed on your own part of town? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: So did you grow up in Rayville? Dawson: No. Tarleton: You grew up on Hattie Spencer’s farm then another farm? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Was it your daddy’s farm? Dawson: No (voice sounds angry) Tarleton: Whose farm was it? Dawson: Arby Thompson. Tarleton: Was he a white man or a black man? He was white. Where was it? Dawson: Alto, Louisiana. Tarleton: Did you stay there? Dawson: No. (voice becomes animated) Tarleton: So where did you go to school? Dawson: Sunshine school. Tarleton: Is that where Hattie Spencer (Emma Spencer’s daughter from a previous conversation) taught? Dawson: I guess so. Tarleton: Is Sunshine School where you went to school? Dawson: Yeah until I was in the 5th grade. Then I went to Gunley till the 8th grade then I went to Rayville High School. Tarleton: How did you like Rayville High School? Dawson: I liked it. Tarleton: How long did you go there? Dawson: Till the 10th grade. Tarleton: What made you quit school? Dawson: Well, you had to pay room and board to go there and my daddy only made one bale of cotton that year. Tarleton: Who did you live with? Dawson: Oh, I can’t remember. Tarleton: Did you live in the city of Rayville? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: How old were you? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: What year was that? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: What happened to the cotton crop? Dawson: It rained and rained that year. It just rained in the morning time and the blooms fell off the cotton and it couldn’t make a bole. He only made one bale of cotton that year (voice sounds sad.) Tarleton: How did your family make it that year? Dawson: He had to borrow money. Tarleton: Who had that kind of money to lend if the crops were that bad? Dawson: Arby Thompson. Tarleton: Is it R.B or Arby? Dawson: Arby. Tarleton: Did you daddy ever pay all the money back? Dawson: Naw. He runs off and didn’t pay the debt. He felt he shouldn’t have to pay it back. (sounds out of breath.) Tarleton: Well, if he borrowed the money, didn’t he think he should have to pay the money back? Dawson: No. He said that Arby charged him the same for one bale of cotton that he did for 6 (bales of cotton.) He never changed the price. Tarleton: So your daddy felt that Arby was over charging him? Dawson: Yeah (voice sounds strongly convinced.) Tarleton: Did the ever use a word called “sharecropping” to describe the kind of work your daddy did? Dawson: Yeah. Sharecropping. Tarleton: Was your daddy afraid? Dawson: Yeah. He left and went to New Orleans to work there. Tarleton: Did Arby try to find him? Dawson: Yeah, but my daddy went to the Justice Center in New Orleans. New Orleans had a Justice Center. Arby sent a letter to Poppa telling him to pay and Poppa took it to the Justice Center. The man at the Justice Center read the letter and told Poppa that he didn’t owe Arby nothing and that Poppa better not pay it. (Voice sounds strong.) Tarleton: Well, when did your family move back to Rayville? Dawson: They just kept moving and working different jobs. Tarleton: Did they follow the work? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: What kind of work? Dawson: They worked the farms with different crops. Cotton. Strawberries you know. They worked construction jobs. Tarleton: And when did you move back to Rayville? Dawson: I didn’t. I lived in Alto on a farm with my cousins. Tarleton: And you wanted to go into the army (from a previous conversation) Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: What happened that you didn’t go into the army? (frustrated voice) Dawson: Some peoples told the lady I was too young. Tarleton: What happened? Dawson: They moved the recruitment office from Monroe to Shreveport. They sent me a card and I mailed the card back to them. I went to the store when the lady came to pick me up and the peoples went and told the lady “She too young! She too young!” and the lady left. Tarleton: Were you too young? Dawson: (Resigned voice)No. Tarleton: How old did you have to be to go into the Army? Dawson: 16 years old. What war was that? World War II. Tarleton: How old were you? Dawson: 17 or 18. Tarleton: Did you ever try to contact the lady again to prove your age? Dawson: No. (Voice sad.) Tarleton: So what did you do after that? Dawson: Worked the farm (voice sound exasperated like “What else could I do?”) Tarleton: Who were the people who said you were too young? Dawson: Curtis Hanley and his wife. Tarleton: Then what did you do? Dawson: I went to Beauty school in Monroe (Louisiana) Tarleton: Where did you stay? Dawson: With a cousin, Hattie Rankin. Tarleton: How much did it cost to go to beauty school? Dawson: I paid $50 down. Tarleton: That’s all it cost? Dawson: No. When I finished school and got my license I worked in Sally Gully Beauty Shop in Monroe. Tarleton: How long did you work there? Dawson: Oh, a long time. Tarleton: Were you there when Bubba (her son) was born? Dawson: No. I had moved to New Orleans. Tarleton: Because your dad was there? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Well, your mom lived on Ed’s land in her old age. How did she get there? Dawson: Well, daddy said he was moving back to Rayville. I knew then that he was gonna die. Tarleton: By then did you live in Monroe? Dawson: Yeah. I knew he was gonna die when he said he was moving back to Rayville. Tarleton: Because of Arby Thompson? Yeah and because he hated momma’s peoples. Tarleton: I didn’t know that. Dawson: Yeah. He hated momma’s peoples. He told me “I’m gonna take your momma back to be with her peoples.” I knew then that he was gonna die. Tarleton: How long did he live after that? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: You had left Louisiana by then? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Your family has really been through a lot. Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: I remember something that you told me about Ed. You said he raised his sister’s 2 kids. Dawson: Yeah, he did. Tarleton: What was her name? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: What were the kids’ names? Dawson: I don’t know. Tarleton: How did you find out about it? Dawson: Momma told me. Tarleton: And who was your mom named after? Dawson: My daddy’s sister Vicie. Tarleton: Do you remember her last name? Dawson: No. Tarleton: And where did your daddy preach? Dawson: Red Hill Baptist Church. Tarleton: What city was it in? Dawson: Hammond (Louisiana) Tarleton: How old were you? Dawson: Oh, maybe 26. Tarleton: And did he teach school too? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: Where did he teach? Dawson: At Sunshine School at Sunshine Baptist Church. Tarleton: What city was that in? Dawson: Alto Louisiana Tarleton: Who was the regular teacher? Dawson: Hattie Spencer. Tarleton: Emma Spencer’s daughter? Dawson: Yeah. Tarleton: You mentioned Holly Grove before. What did your family do at Holly Grove? Dawson: We went to church there. Tarleton: And did you go to church at Sunshine? Dawson: No. We went to church at Holly Grove. We went to school at Sunshine. Tarleton: Where did you live? Dawson: I told you, Alto. Tarleton: Where at? Dawson: Arby Thompson’s farm. Tarleton: Did your dad ever preach at Holly Grove? Dawson: Sometimes. Tarleton: How far did you have to walk to school? Dawson: 4 miles. We worked the fields, but when there was no work in the fields, then we went to school. Tarleton: Did your dad ever teach? Dawson: A little bit, but I was too young to remember. Tarleton: Well, if it’s okay, I’d like to ask you some more questions later. Dawson: Yeah. End 7:02pm “Thus, we can conclude that these memories which seemed to be unavailable can be reintegrated given the appropriate stimulus.” (Hoffman and Hoffman) References: Hoffman, Alice M, and Howard R. Hoffman Reliability and Validity in Oral History: The Case For Memory http://www3.baylor.edu/Oral_History/Hoffmans.pdf The interviewer extends her appreciation to the Pflugerville, Texas Community Library Genealogy Society for encouraging oral history recording; the Monroe Public Library Genealogy Department for encouraging genealogy research of Richland Parish, and the staff of the Louisiana Historical Archives for their assistance in verifying the existence of Easter Berry Ragsdale. Over 20 years ago the interviewer had the task of recording dreams of subjects for a dream study conducted by graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. She recorded dream after dream using the standard tape recorder method. She used her skills again at Midwestern State University in the History Department using the foot pedal method of transcribing oral books dictated onto standard tapes by one of the professors. It was there that she gained a love of authentic history as opposed to textbook history designed to be swallowed without thinking. Her typing skills as well as an ear for listening and interviewing greatly increased. After graduating from McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois, she did not use her transcription skills again until she began to explore her genealogy.