On the record
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.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgPlain 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.
Du Bois outlines the principles set by Washington regarding labor for freedmen after the Civil War.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.