Simon Phillips

Simon Phillips was born in 1847 in Hale County, Alabama, one of about 300 people enslaved by a Greensboro planter on a plantation seven miles long and three miles wide. He was a house man: he mixed drinks, opened carriage doors, served refreshments to guests on the porch, kept the carriage and fine horses in order, and tended the lawn. He said he was never struck, only scolded once for not bringing a drink on time. Workers far off in the bottom lands had their dinner carried out to them by boys and women, while those nearer ate in a large mess hall.

He explained that a man who wanted to marry a woman on another plantation had to ask his enslaver to buy her, which depended on whether her owner would sell and whether she was "strong and healthy," since people "was bought mostly like horses." He saw families split at auction, and said women always brought more than men. At fourteen he went to war as a bodyguard to the planter's son in Joe Wheeler's cavalry, cleaning guns, keeping camp and cooking, and once stood within ten feet of Wheeler as he gave a speech.

After the war he stayed until 1866, then moved to Tuscaloosa. When interviewed at 90 he lived in Birmingham, still spading his own large garden, and for 23 years had been president of a union of about 1,500 formerly enslaved people across Alabama, the last surviving founder of its Birmingham chapter.