W. E. B. Du Bois

To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty (…). In song and exhortation swelled one refrain - Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand. At last it came, - suddenly, fearfully, like a dream. With one wild carnival of blood and passion came the message in his own plaintive cadences :-
"Shout, O children!
Shout, you're free!
For God has bought your liberty!"