Purely secular songs are few in number, partly because many of them were turned into hymns by a change of words, partly because the frolics were seldom heard by the stranger, and the music less often caught.
Du Bois explains the scarcity of purely secular songs among African Americans, attributing this to the transformation of many into hymns.
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Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
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