Quotation:

“Hall: Well yeah, he said to me no wonder you got so many hogs to go to the sale, said you got a ditch cut out under the wire, you know, where my hogs could come on over there and you’re selling them. Man, I blowed him up and told him how big a liar he was. I said if you find any hog on the sale belong to you I’d like for you to describe him. And so he went back home and he told his folks I was a crazy nigger. Said that James hall over yonder, he’s crazy. Said he ain’t got good sense. Said he over there, my hogs getting under the fence and it was the biggest lie he ever told. The hogs didn’t even root against the fence. So anyway, we went later on my cows got out, my cows got out and he got out in the road and he drove them up the road and put them in his pen, you know, in his barn…

Hall: … Then when I got over there to get them, to get my cows, twenty-five dollars, that’s what I had to pay him to get my cows out of the pen where he had them locked up…

Hall: … I paid him the twenty-five dollars and got my cows and carried them home… 

Hunter: … Why did you have to pay twenty-five dollars to get them out?

Hall: Oh, he said they was going to eat up his crop, they didn’t allow that, at that particular time, now they don’t allow other folks stock to go on their place and eat up their crops. They put them up and charge them a fee and some of them go out there and kill them, white folks do.

Hunter: This was fair?

Hall: That was fair but they could overcharge you. He overcharged me cause the cows didn’t get out of the road. What they done, he had his hands to push the cows up in there and headed the cows right off the highway, right off the public road and into the barn…” 

Comment: Reading this part of the interview really made me upset. I was both angry and sad for James Hall. Before he told this story, he first began by explaining all of the years, time, and effort put into his farming. His farms were all he had. It was his life’s work. Unfortunately, he had so many different farms because he had to move so many times because people couldn’t treat him right. It angers me so much that black people were/are treated so differently just because of the color of their skin. We are all human beings, we are all people, skin color doesn’t make a difference. Everyone should be treated equally. It really bothers me how poorly him and his family were treated by other farmers. You would think that since they are in the saem business and community that they would all be peaceful with each other and help each other if need be, but they can’t even do that just because of the color of his skin. So horrible. 

Question: I’m confused about the beginning of the interview when he tells the story of the people who were going to kill his daddy… Can we have a conversation about this to clarify the events?