Plain instructions went out from Washington: the laborers must be free to choose their employers, no fixed rate of wages was prescribed, and there was to be no peonage or forced labor.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “Plain instructions went out from Washington: the laborers must be free to choose their employers, no fixed rate of wages…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois outlines the principles set by Washington regarding labor for freedmen after the Civil War.
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