Les âmes du peuple noir

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!"

The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry of freedom.