T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE: Willie Jackson

COLLECTION: 4700.0282

IDENTIFICATION: [1889- ]Lifelong resident of Four Corners, an unincorporated community south of Franklin, La.; grandson of slaves; lifelong worker in sugarcane fields

INTERVIEWER: Adrienne LaCour, graduate student in landscape architecture, LSU

PROJECT: Four Corners Community Center landscape design project.

DATE: 2 December 1993

FOCUS DATES: 1895-1930

ABSTRACT:

Tape 392A

Childhood memories of working in the fields with parents; description of early Four Corners before any commercial buildings were in place and when it was owned by one white man; baptism in Bayou Teche; early transportation in boats before installation of float bridge; life on Sterling plantation; difficulties of childhood and early adulthood; contrast of freedom of African Americans then and today; his marriage and how he "stole" his wife; different pay for men and women; accounts of slavery era when people were bought "just like a horse or cow"; activities associated with sugarcane harvest; early schoolroom in Four Corners.

TAPE: 392A

TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 45 min.

INDEX: 3 pages

RESTRICTIONS: None