The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.
From his seminal work, this passage describes the shift in perception among Black Americans, viewing the ballot not just as a symbol but as the primary instrument for securing full liberty.
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Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the…
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.