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E. Evans (Negro)
610 Parsons Street, S.W.
Brick Layer Plasterer
by
-eneva Tonsill
The place I'm talkin' about, when I wuz sent for the tryout,
wuz on the outskirts of
chilluns out ole 'nough
guess you'd call it the
near ten years ole they
town. It wuz a house where they sent
to work for a sort of trainin'. I
trainin' period. When the chiiluns wuz
had this week's trial to get them used
to the work they'd have to do when they reached ten years. At
the age of ten years they wuz then sent to .the field to work.
They'd chop, hoe, pick cotton and pull fodder, corn, or anything
else to be done on the plantation. I stayed at the place a whole
week and wuz brought home on Saturday. That week's work showed
me what I wuz to do when I wuz ten yeard ole. -Well, this wuz
just befo Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea and I never
got a chance to go to the plantation to work agint for Miss Emily
freed all on her place and soon after that we wuz emancipated.
"The soldiers I mentioned while ago that passed with Sherman
carried provisions, hams, shoulders, meal', flour and other food.
They had their cooks and other servants. I !member seeing a io#an
in that crowd of servants. She had a baby in her arms. She
hollered at us chillun and said, 'You chilluns git off dat fence
and go learn yore ABC's.' I thought she wuz crazy telling us thatj
for we had never been 'lowed to learn, nothing at all like reading
a writing. I learned but it wuz after surrender and I wuz over
tens years oh.
"It wuz soon after the soldiers passed with Sherman that Miss
Emily called in all the .Woiliisery nts and told them they could
take their chillun/to the cabin and stay there until after the war.
My father, Georgei, had gone with Josh Hill, a son of Miss Emily's
to wait on him. She told my mother to take us to that cabin until
a place could be made for us.
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"I said I wuz born a slave but I wuz too young to know
much about slavery. I wuz the property of the Hill family from
1855 to 1865, when freedom wuz declared and they said we wuz free.
"My master had four sons, three of them went to t1e army.
Legree Hill, the youngest son, went to the war at the age of
eighteen years. He wus killed it,the:Keuneawi:mountains. His
mother seemed sad over his going because he was too young and ran
off and went. A sharpshooter killed him- His father went for
him. He wuz buried in the Yankee line, wrapped in a blanket. He
had some of the money he had when he wuz killed, on him. He wuz
dressed like a Yankee, in their uniform. 0f caurse, nothing much
wuz said about it, as I 'member, cause he wasn't supposed to be a
Yankee at all. He wuz fighting against :the Yankees. When he
wuz so stirred up to go to the war he told his mother that he
wanted to go because he wanted to bring Lincoln's head back and he
wuz going after his head.. He didn't.get to come back. Another
son, Clarence, a calvaryman, wuz the oldest son. He had two horses
shot out from under him but he escaped himself.
"I left ,iadiscn and went to Athens, Georgia. I learned the
trade of brick'masonry and plasterinl. I moved to Athens on the
second of April in 1877. I went there to work for a contractor,
Nasus McGinty. I stayed in Athens from April, 1877, until August
in 1880. I then moved to Atlanta. This wuz the beginning of life
for me in Atlanta. I have been here ever since, working at my txt
trade, except for short intervals I went out to work, out of town.
"I built this house in 1887 and moved in the same year on
December 27. At first it had only two rooms but I've added to it
until now we have ten or twelve rooms. My house now is somewhat
larger than Colonel Hill's house where the family lived who owned
us as slaves.
"I have worked at my trade until I got too old to work.
Of course, now I do a little piddling 'round, nothin' much
though, for you can see I'm a old man and can't do much.
"I helped build Stone Hall and the 4ork Shop on the Atlanta
University campus. It is now used by the Morris Brown College
since they changed to the Atlanta University System. I worked
with Alex Hamilton and Son in the year 1888 in the building trade.
I had a lot of building in College Park in the Military School.
I wuz never idle, as there wuzn't so many brick layers and plaster-
ers at that time. I kept quite busy. I did brick work on the
Y. M. C. AO building, under Alex Hamilton. No, I don't recall
any special handicap or discrimination in my building, except in
the early eighties, when there wuz but few Negroes working as
brick layers and plasters, I experienced somewhat a handicap being
colored. This wuz when buildint wuz low and I worked under a white
contractor. No matter how good a Negro wuz he wuz the last to be
hired and then he wuz given same minor job. I saw that even if
a Negro wuz a better brick layer, all the white workers wuz given
the first jobs and after they wi.% all supplied, then the Negro
workers got what wuz left.
"Most all of the brick layers that wuz active when I wuz.
young are are dead now. I wuz talking the other day to one of the
old heads, West Todd, who wuz in my crowd in the early days and
we could name only four of us living now.
"My wife wuz born in Cassville, after the war. She is seventy--
five years old though. We wuz born about one hundred miles apart.
She has been in Atlanta since a little girl. I bet sheeould give
you a good stery herself. We had nine children and seven of
them live now. My baby is over 35 years old. He lives in the
house with me and my wife. So you see I'm a old man, having a baby
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that old.
4My church life started in Atlanta. I joined the Friendship
Baptist Church when I wuz twenty-seven years old. That IA been
fifty-seven years ago. I remember when they first started Spel-7
man College in Friendship. That wuz a long time ago.
"I've seen Atlanta grow from a town of woods, pig and cow
paths to a great city of paved streets, tall buildings and beau-
tifully lighted streets. You wouldn't believe it but there wuz
creeks and branches muting running along where the main part of
town is now. There is a creek under the First 'Iational Bank
Building and I 'member when they wuz building that bank they got
a alligator out of the creek. It wuz small as I recall now, but
Imagine that wow all along where the fine buildings is nowt and
to think I've livekto see all of this growth.
"I've witnessed some trying times here too. I saw the riot
and the great fire that practically burned up a part of Atlanta.
saw the toll of the rictohatred, prejudiceland murder. M wuz
working out on what is now Highland Avenue at the time. Soldiers
had to be sent out and they wuz supposed to protect everyone but
some of them didn't uphold the law. There wuz a gang of soldiers,
and I say gang because that is just what I feel they wuz from the
way they acted, dressed in uniform of Uhole Sam and sent out be-
cause they wuz supposed to keep the law and there *hey wuz break-
ing it. They wuz acting like ordinary, revengeful people, pour-
ing out their hatred for the Negro. Those soldiers came down
the streets shouting and ,singing:
'We are rough, we are tough,
We are rough, we are tough
We Kill niggers and never get enouga.'
That gang of soldiers went right on their marching ana when they
got to McGruder Street they killed a Negro. They patrolled
Randolph Street and went on down Irwin. They seemed bent on
showing their wrath against the Negro. That wu a pitiful
time. Negroes wuz shot down without any cause and they wuz
scared to be seen on the street. We had no one, it seemed,
on our side for there wuz the soldiers shouting and singing:
'We are rough, we are tough, we kill niggers and never get enough.
There they wuz really adding to the riot, more hatred, deaths,
and not doing what they wuz supposed to do. At the time of the
riot they claimed that only one white man wuz killed and thirteen
Negroes. But it was rumored here I don't knot it tgobe true
and don't know whether I ought to repeat it but it was said the
white undertaker shops wuz filled with victims of the riot and
they wuz burying them at night so the Negroes wouldn't know how
many wuz killed. We had no way of knowing whether this wuz true
or not. 'Mere wiel a man in South Atlanta, who, it is said, killed
two or three white men before he was/captured. Really he wuzn't
caught, for he barred hisself in a house and shot everyone who
came near the house and the only way they got him wuz to burn the
house and he wuz burned up in it.
_"The same year that McKinley came through here as
president, they burned ajlegro, Hogue Smith. The Georgian news-
paper wasn't called the Georgian then but the editor of what is
now the Georgian ran a excursion down to Fairburn to see the burn-
ing of that Negro. That wuz something awful.
"Well, I'm glad I've lived to see a better understanding
between the two races and I do believe in not many years to come
there will be no more lynching of the Negroes and people just
like us going to witness them like as though they were places of
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amusement. I know the mean, low, ignorant Negro is the one who
really cause3most of the trouble between the races)but now that
they are getting more civilized and the whites have come to realize
they are trying to imitate them and make good citizens, they are
spending large sums of money for their education and making them
fit to live with.