The time period is 1919 in Mississippi. Blacks still living with/working for the families who owned them during the Civil War. Simon is one of those people.
Love this quote from Wm Faulkner's book Sartoris:
A number of motor cars ranked along the curb lent a formally festive air to the place, and Simon with his tilted cigar stub wheeled up and drew rein and indulged in a brief, colorful altercation with a negro sitting at the wheel of a car parked before the hitching-block. "Don't block off no Sartoris ca'iage, black boy," Simon concluded when the other had moved the motor and permitted him access to the post. "Block off de commonality, ef you wants, but don't intervoke no equipage waitin' on Cunnel or Miss Jenny. Dey won't stan' fer it."
Classic Faulkner.
