James Smith

James W. Smith was born into slavery on John Hallman's place at Palestine, Texas, where his parents and about fifty others were enslaved. He was too young to work as an enslaved person, and most of what he knew came from his mother. His parents were house servants. The cabins were built without nails, the logs dovetailed and chinked with mud and straw, and some men were trained as carpenters, a blacksmith, and a shoe- and harness-maker. Clothes were dyed with black oak and cherry.

He told with delight of the Saturday-night jigging contests on a platform the enslaver built, where dancers balanced cups of water on their heads. The best dancer on the place, a man named Tom, was once challenged by a rival before a big crowd with money bet on both sides. Both men danced faster and faster, both made the final whirl, but the challenger spilled a spoonful of water, and Tom won.

After freedom his family stayed five years, then his father arranged for a farm of his own on Bertha Creek. James remembered the Klan whipping people in the area until soldiers came to restore order. He farmed until 1895, when he became a Baptist minister, and preached until poor health forced him to retire in 1931. He lived in Fort Worth with his wife.