In the summer of 1935, an 85-year-old man named Preely Coleman sat on a porch in Tyler, Texas, and did something almost no one born into slavery had been asked to do before: he told his whole story, from the first thing he could remember to the day freedom finally came.
The interviewer from the Works Progress Administration wrote down every word in Preely’s own East Texas dialect. What he left behind is not a footnote in someone else’s history book. It is a life.
“I was born in 1852 in Newberry, South Carolina,” Preely began. “I couldn’t have been more than one month old when dey carried mother and me to Texas.”
They traveled in a wagon. His mother, still weak from childbirth, walked part of the way. On that journey she married a man named John Selman (no relation to the white Selmans who would later own them). When they reached Cherokee County near Alto, the white Selmans bought mother and baby for $1,500, a price Preely never forgot.
Childhood under slavery was work from the moment a child could walk straight.
“We had to hoe and plow from sunup till sundown,” he said. “Breakfast was bread in potlicker or milk, sometimes with a little honey if we was lucky. Shoes? Dey give us red russet brogans—stiff as boards. Hurt yo’ feet somethin’ awful.”
Meals came when someone blew a conk shell across the fields. You dropped your hoe and ran.
He remembered the Civil War years like they were yesterday. Confederate soldiers camped nearby, and the enslaved boys would race them for fun. “Dem soldiers would laugh and bet nickels on us chillun,” he said, a faint smile in the telling.
He almost didn’t live to see freedom. One day some bigger boys tied a rope around his neck “jes’ playin’,” and dragged him until he went limp. A white man named Captain Berryman happened by, cut him loose, and carried him back to his mother. “I was mighty nigh dead,” Preely said.
Then came the day everything changed.
“We was out in de field,” he remembered. “Massa come ridin’ up on his hoss and hollered, ‘You all is free as I is!’ We didn’t know what to think at first. But by night, folks was singin’ and shoutin’ and packin’ up. Some left that very hour.”
Preely Coleman carried that day (and all the days before it) for seventy years. When he spoke in 1935, his voice was steady, matter-of-fact, sometimes amused, never bitter. He had outlived slavery, outlived the Selmans, outlived almost everyone who had ever claimed to own him.
He ended his interview the way many of the old ones did: quietly, with dignity.
“I’s had a hard time in my day, but I’s still here.”
And because he spoke, we still hear him.
“I Never Gets Tired of Talkin’”: The Full Story of Preely Coleman, Told in His Own Words
Tyler, Texas – Juneteenth, 1935 An 85-year-old man sits on his porch, rocking slow, grinning wide. The WPA interviewer asks if he feels like talking today.
“Miss, I’m Preely Coleman, and I never gets tired of talkin’.”
What follows is one of the richest, most vivid first-person narratives to come out of the Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives. Here, in Preely’s own voice (lightly edited for clarity but never changed in spirit), is his life from cradle to freedom and beyond.
Born in Slavery, Sold at One Month Old
“I was born in 1862 on the old Souba place, about ten miles from Newberry, South Carolina. My mammy belonged to the Souba family, but—Miss, I hates to say this, but it’s the truth—one of the Souba boys was my pappy. That’s why they made my mammy leave. The Soubas sold her (or anyway she fell into the hands of) Bob and Dan Lewis. Them Lewis brothers brought a big bunch of slaves to Texas, and me and mammy was in that bunch.
I was just one month old when we left Carolina. Took better than a month to get to Alto, Texas. We settled five miles east of town, right off the old San Antonio road.”
Life on the Plantation
On the road to Texas, Preely’s mother married John Selman (with the master’s consent—no ceremony). After two hard years with the Lewises, who lost their place, Preely, his mother, and stepfather were bought by Master Tom Selman and Missus Polly for $1,500 apiece.
“We had five cabins in a big yard—five acres with lots of trees. Beds was clean straw, grass, and shucks. Every Saturday afternoon Master Tom or Young Master Frank dealt out groceries by family size. We wore long shirts with slits in the sides—no breeches till we got bigger. Shoes? Old red russet brogans. Stiff as boards and hurt somethin’ awful, but Master made us wear ’em all the time so we wouldn’t cut our feet on stumps and lose work days.”
The Races and the Rope
Preely was lightning fast.
“During the war, soldiers goin’ to or comin’ from Mansfield, Louisiana, would stop overnight. They’d line us chillun up and say, ‘First one to slap that big mulberry tree gets a quarter!’ I nearly always won. Made a many a quarter slappin’ that old tree.
The other chillun got jealous. One day Lewis, Henry, Clark, Frankie, Emaline, Caroline, and Adoline—Antney the foreman’s kids—threw a rope round my neck ‘jes’ playin’.’ Started draggin’ me down the hill toward the spring. My friend Billy fought ’em, but I was ‘nigh about choked to death.
Captain Berryman from Alto come ridin’ up on a big white horse, jumped down, cut the rope, grabbed me by the heels, and soused me up and down in the spring till I come to. Then he marched all them chillun ahead of him back to the big house. Master Tom scared ’em half to death—said he oughta skin ’em alive—but he never touched ’em. After that, they left me alone. I owes my life to Cap’n Berryman.”
Work, Worship, and Waiting for Freedom
“First job was hoein’—two years of it. Then you graduated to the plow. Up by daylight, back to the field at 12:30 sharp when the conk shell blew for dinner. Saturday afternoon off. No work on Sunday—if Master heard an ax, he’d say, ‘Ain’t you got enough wood? Lay that down and come get some of mine.’
We went to our little brush-arbor church once a month. Sang Amazing Grace, Where He Leads Me, and When I Can Read My Title Clear. One overseer, Andy Odom, got so happy shoutin’ during Am I a Soldier of the Cross that he fell clean off the rail fence.”
The Day Freedom Came
“I was pullin’ fodder with my mammy—I wasn’t tall enough to reach the top blades, so I pulled the bottom ones and laid ’em down for her to tie. Master Tom rode up and said:
‘Well, you all just as free as I am now. You can stay or you can go—do what you want.’
That was a happy occasion. Some didn’t even finish tyin’ the bundles. That night folks was singin’ and shoutin’ and packin’ up.”
After Freedom
Preely’s family went to work for Miss Caroline Selman, Master Tom’s sister. He hired out, married twice (“no big weddin’, but mammy gave us a nice dinner”), had nine children by his first wife, and was married by Justice of the Peace Hiram McKnight in the old Rusk courthouse.
In 1935 he lived in Tyler with his daughter Emma, proud that three of his boys—Henry, Stevy, and Larkin—were still living and doing public work.
The Last Word
The interviewer asked if he had anything else to say.
Preely laughed and rocked a little faster.
“Miss, I done told you everything from the time I was a month old. I’s had a hard time, but the Lord’s been good to me. I found Him the second Sunday night in May 1872—just before day—and I been fightin’ the devil ever since. So far I’s won.
And I never gets tired of talkin’.”
Preely Coleman passed from this world sometime after that Juneteenth day, but because he never got tired of talking, his voice—and his victory—still ring clear ninety years later.
